In The Moment

It is hard to make music more spontaneously than on this release by the Naxos World label. Jon Hemmersam and Asal Malekzadeh had never met before the recording session, which led to a deeply impressive and completely improvised set. Asal Malekzadeh plays the daf, a Kurdish drum, masterfully; she has received numerous awards, including first prize for her solo performances at the Daf Navazi Festival in Kermanshah, Iran 2007, and at the Avaye Mehr Festival, Iran 2009. Jon Hemmersam is a world-renowned guitarist, musician, composer, and improviser from Denmark. His credits include albums with some of the biggest names in modern jazz and contemporary classical music, one of them on the NAXOS label with percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, "The Core-tet Project" (8.573804), which was released back in 2018.