Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To never make use of the bridge that connects one community to another is to waste the chance of growth. Whether metaphorical or steeped in the heartbeat of the music that drives us to prefer one genre over another, The Bridge is a series of interlocking steps that can bring the listener to a greater understanding of how we all look towards the unknown above the deep gorge and know instinctively that the step taken towards clarification and explanation is not to be feared.

In the footsteps of his legendary father, Ali Akbar Moradi, Arash Moradi takes the sound of the tambour and gives it a sense of overriding purity, a seeking of the Progressive, a sound of searching for a answer, patient but beating in the soul of a wild beast, the wisdom of one who has studied but who strikes out to new boundaries; one to whom The Bridge holds nothing but the exploration and journey into a new and exciting territory, a passion untold but one soon held onto as if whispered and rumoured to be the very soul of music.

The art of exploration seems to be one that is lost, to search for enlightenment and spread a message of hope and lasting friendship between people has become old fashioned, left only to artists and their means of conveying a message; too much hedonism arguably driving people to seek a fleeting thrill rather than hearing a song in a language that cannot be spoken. It is though in the hands of the son of the undisputed master of the craft that the language is not only heard but heart-breakingly loved.

Arash Moradi’s The Bridge is complex and bountiful, passionate and supreme, but one that is humble enough to play out a truth that whilst we can become a Master of our art, there really is not enough bridges in which we eventually can cross; the open path becoming a drawbridge in which we readily pull up behind us, never going back and spreading the word.

Each one of the seven tracks, Whispering Passages, Hewraz, The Return, Shalaan, Whirling Phrases, Gilded Dust and the album title track of Bridge is one to take heed of, alluring, ultimately Progressive and filled with intricate skill. The Bridge is the reveal of the spirit into which a tambour calls down to the listener and invites them to try just one more step, the gorge may be deep but the message of the instrument is boundless.

Ian D. Hall