At the Door

A couple of weeks ago, while listening to CBC Radio's Here and Now as I was wondering about downtown, I heard a song by a band from Tehran called O-Hum.

Except that since I heard it on the radio, I thought it was something like 'ohum'. And so, I've been looking for a band named as such for the last couple of weeks.

Then, this morning I remembered that Here and Now, during their New Year's episode, promised to keep up-to-date records of all the music they played in the coming year. I pointed my browser to the relevant page of their website and lo and behold, it wasn't there. But, they did have a link to the blog of the houseguest who had brought the music in.

Hossein Derakshan is a Toronto/Tehran based blogger who is spearheading the blogging revolution in Iran.¹ And he, thankfully, did mention the proper name of the band and the title of the song - "Darvish".

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any English translations of the lyrics, but the band's website is pretty comprehensive.

A little googling found me this:

The Persian word Darvish means 'sill of the door' and is used of Sufi mystics who stand, in figurative terms, at the door to enlightenment.

and

...the Persian "darvish", meaning a poor man.

So, I'm a little confused about that. I'll have to ask around.

Anyway, click 'play' to hear the song.

Oh yes, and don't forget that they have to make their music in a bandmember's basement because Rock is still considered subversive. And, their latest album was published in Toronto.

• ¹That kind of sounds silly - 'blogging revolution' - when I reread it, but there's no better way to describe it. The internet is giving people a voice in a way that was not possible ten or even five years ago. And they're speaking out on their blogs.

Also, here's one more flick I forgot to mention yesterday:

Crossing the Bridge (Now Playing)
About the evolution of the music scene in Turkey. Features a Canadian artist as well.