Parisa Sabet: A Cup of Sins
Redshift Records

As clearly shown by A Cup of Sins, Iranian-Canadian composer Parisa Sabet brings a unique voice to the contemporary music scene. Her musical journey began at the age of nine with piano lessons in Shiraz and continued at Chicago's Roosevelt University, where she earned her Bachelor degree, and at the University of Toronto, where she acquired Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in composition. Her writing thus naturally draws from both her Iranian roots and Western education, the result a highly personalized music arrestingly captured on her debut album. She's seen her work featured in film documentaries and performed in her adopted home of Toronto as well as Seattle, Sydney, and Chicago, and there's little reason to presume it won't continue emerging in other parts of the world as awareness spreads.

The album's six compositions primarily feature acoustic instruments, the exceptions A Cup of Sin for including Robert Grieve's electric guitar and Maku for incorporating electronics. But if the instrumentation used carries with it long-standing traditions, Sabet's music nevertheless feels fresh and new. She benefits from the participation of stellar musicians, from soprano Jacqueline Woodley on down. Acclaimed pianist Christina Petrowska-Quillico contributes, as do flutist Laurel Swinden, clarinetist Peter Stoll, cellist Dobrochna Zubek, and on violin and viola Matthias McIntire; Joshua Tamayo also appears in a conducting capacity. Adding to the recording's appeal, arrangements change from one piece to the next, with Geyrani, for example, a solo violin setting and The Seville Orange Tree spiritedly performed by Swinden and Petrowska-Quillico. However varied the programme is, Sabet's distinctive sensibility unites it. That Woodley performs on three pieces also helps connect the dots.

Performed by quintet, the lively opener Shurangiz draws for inspiration from a composition by Iranian tar player Ali Ghamsari and exemplifies a strong Iranian influence in its insistent rhythms and sinuous melodic interweave. Patterns interlock with machine-like precision as the music dances, the material offering an enticing first taste of Sabet's style. Also conceived with another in mind, Geyrani pays homage to Kurdish-Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, the character of Sabet's music again evoking her Iranian roots in the allure of its serpentine swoon and use of microtones, glissando, and pizzicato. In a commanding performance of the three-movement song cycle Dance In Your Blood, Woodley gives dramatic voice to text by thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi, Petrowska-Quillico her sole accompanist for the twelve-minute performance. Here also one witnesses a seamless marriage between East and West when the movements alternate between the formality of classical art song and the abandon of emotionally driven expression.

In the album's most audacious and arresting construction, Maku weaves between sung and spoken elements, with the acoustic instruments augmented by pre-recorded elements encompassing cricket thrum, tweeting birds, and voice babble. Woodley's called upon to push into zones of extreme contrast and intensity, with singing that extends from elegant beauty to violent theatricality. There's a collage-like effect to the piece when it includes so many parts, yet it retains its shape through the recurring presence of the speaking voice and soprano. There's no shortage of mesmerizing moments either, such as the episode where the singer's voice, accompanied by strings and flute, appears alongside the repeated spoken utterance of “I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things” by multiple speakers, young and old.

Rivaling it for attention is A Cup of Sin, scored for soprano, electric guitar, clarinet, piano, and strings and extending across seventeen minutes. Originally created as a work for voice and guitar quartet (a commission by Tim Brady's Instruments of Happiness, in fact), the material incorporates text by Nobel-prize nominated poet Simin Behbahani dealing with violence against women. Befitting the topic, Sabet's solemn musical treatment bookends a poignant vocal drone in the prelude and unaccompanied wordless meditation in the postlude with desperate expressions by a no-holds-barred Woodley during the crushing central part—not always easy listening but certainly compelling.

September 2022