Tag: babel

Categories
poetry

No Country For a Young Man

I declare that I have no country.

I was born in Iran.
I have always adored English and American music culture.
I die for Arabian belly dance.
As a composer I have been mostly compared to Belgian bands.
For no apparent reason I am strongly attracted to Japanese culture.
For more non-apparent reasons I have always been hypnotized by movies and stories revolving Germany and World War II.
My website is available in English, Spanish, Romanian, Japanese, German, Dutch, Italian, French, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, Slovenian and Turkish.

I declare that I have no country.
Sometimes I feel a little lonely about it. But looking at the map and seeing so many country names there, reminds me of million eyes ready to reflect the world within their owners’ minds…

Having millions of worlds inside, is human being in need of having a country at all? I seriously doubt that…

Categories
memo

Multicultural Sonic Unconsciousness

After releasing Iconophobic album, something extraordinary happened. Critics started comparing my sound to composers and bands I have never listened to. Here are four examples:

  • “In many ways it would be more natural to hear this kind of music coming from a French performer than an Iranian one.” – Gary Hill, Music Street Journal
  • “I say … the entire Belgian chamber rock scene as an influence on making Iconophobic” –Peter van Haerenborgh, Progwereld
  • “Salim was born in Iran in 1981 and at age 29, he sounds much more adapt to the French/Belgium electronic progressive rock school of the 70’s that stand up so well to this day.” – Lee Henderson, ProgNaut
  • “If I had listened without knowing the author, I probably would have said: Cute the new album by Clint Mansell!” – Emanuele Brizzante, Good Times Bad Times Blog

The interesting point here is I have no way to prove – however unnecessary – that I had never listened to Belgian prog rock of the 70s or been a follower of Clint Mansell’s works! For me, this is only a testimony of the multicultural nature of human collective unconsciousness from which I have hunted the sounds for Iconophobic album.

Listen to Iconophobic album in full-length at: http://www.salimworld.com/album%20-%20iconophobic.htm

Categories
memo

I make music, do you know the words?

SalimWorld's Babel Project
SalimWorld's Babel Project

Progressive rock is about innovation and transcending borders… As a musician, I naturally take the burden of the music part; but when it comes to communicating about the music there comes language barriers.

In a non-organic solution, I could hire a multi-lingual localization company to translate all of my website contents to different languages. But boy! I noticed that ideally it is impractical, since for “progressive rock” subject there exist at least 20 rather active languages on the web.

I made “progressive rock” Wikipedia article my reference for finding those 20 languages. Since Wikipedia is itself based on voluntarily collaboration, I think it is a good measure for determining in which languages people speak about a subject on the web.

With this perspective in mind, I decided to start to expand my website’s contents to non-English languages on a collaborative basis. I started a localization wiki project on my website named “SalimWorld’s Babel” at cost of rewarding collaborators with a free CD of Iconophobic album (including free shipping) and a free copy of my upcoming album in 2011!

Yea! I’m trying to climb up the Tower of Babel! Do you know the story of ancient Tower of Babel?

I say a “progressive” musician knows no border… Nor geographically, nor earth-wise… Since the rapture within music cannot be confined by anything concerning “reality”.