Released May 17th 2019, ‘Diwan’ is a groundbreaking debut release on Golden Girl Records from two of the most adventurous and accomplished musicians in the UK, pianist Helen Anahita Wilson and tabla master Shahbaz Hussain. Combining both Western and Eastern musical sensibilities to stunning effect, this album is a collection of composed, indeterminate and improvised music. ‘Diwan’ is a diverse yet strangely coherent mix of musical elements; hard to define or dissect but with distinct nods to Jazz and contemporary Classical influences melded to a shared love of Persian, Indian and other South Asian classical and devotional music (and culture). All of which serves to create an inimitable soundscape.
Both masters of their instruments, Helen and Shahbaz have played many major and noted venues around the world – St Paul’s Cathedral, Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., Lincoln Center in New York and London’s Royal Albert & Queen Elizabeth Halls, to name but a few.
Though their playing is, at times, jaw-droppingly complex and masterful, there is nothing ‘academic’ about this project as ‘Diwan’ is just as much an album from the heart and soul as from the mind; a beautiful and compelling musical artwork which is somehow at once both fiercely disciplined yet totally free. The Vortex presents its very first live outing.