The Sedākhāne Report is a periodical publication by Sedākhāne, released every few seasons. It is a continuing report on the released works of folk music in Iran from the late 1950s to the mid-2000s, presenting a curated portion of the archive in each issue. Every volume features a meaningful section of the index—recordings whose physical copies are preserved in the Sedākhāne Archive—accompanied by scanned images of labels and covers, as well as selected audio albums that together provide both a visual and auditory perspective. Alongside each index, we also publish essays in which we share our readings, impressions, and interpretations of the archive. The Sedākhāne Report seeks, through its indexes and articles, to further reveal and illuminate the contents of this extensive archive.
Issue 1
Songs of Continuous Cities
The largest volume of folk music production in Iran in the two forms of 45-rpm records and cassette tapes undoubtedly belongs to the Azerbaijani Turkish music. Thus, it seemed quite meaningful to dedicate the first Sedākhāne Report to the index of 45-rpm records of the Azerbaijani Turkish music in Iran, which account for about a fourth of our entire record archive. The scans of the labels and covers, as well as two audio albums, accompany this index. This visual and audio selection is the outcome of devoted periods of studying, watching, and listening to about 600 records of the Azerbaijani Turkish music in Iran.
The 27 selected works that accompany this volume in the form of two audio albums have been chosen in such a way that they show the stylistic and auditory range of the 45-rpm records’ long index of the Azerbaijani Turkish music in Iran, including Ashiqi music, Azerbaijani classical music, popular music, Motrebi music, pieces based on satirical poems, Arabic-style cabaret music, pieces close to Kurdish and Armenian music, etc. The lyrics of the 27 works along with their Farsi translations are included in this issue.
In addition to the index of records, the focus and heart of this issue is the article titled, “A Brief Account of the Establishment of the Music Production Industry in Iran; the Record Industry and its Relation to Folk Music” which is the first coherent extract of the history of the record industry in Iran. In this article, an attempt is made to present an understandable narrative of the growth of the music production relations in Iran by combining the general knowledge with the specialized one in the field of the record industry history. Moreover, this article seeks to go beyond the Tehran-centered narratives in order to grasp at a broader and more compelling relationship between the record industry, Iran’s geography, and folk music. The aim of the article is to trace the history of the growth of an industry in Iran and its connection with people’s lives in different cities. Obtaining the historical development of this narrative is the result of years of research on Iran’s record industry conducted by Ahmad Jafari, the Scholarly Editor of this volume and a graduate in ethnomusicology from the University of Art, Tehran. This chronological article begins with the arrival of European record companies in Tehran during the constitutional era (1900s) and continues until the spread of cassette tapes in the mid-2000s.
All the texts in this issue have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, and English in the hope of connecting with similar ideas, visions, and concerns in a wider geography.
Pricing
35 euros / 40 USD
Availability
The Sedākhāne Book is now available for purchase.
Please email your order details along with your mailing address to:
info@sedakhane.com
We will send you an invoice and our account information to complete your purchase.
For any inquiries or further information, feel free to contact us.
Credits
Director: Ahmadali Kadivar
Editorial Board: Ahmad Jafari, Ahmadali Kadivar
Scholarly Editor (Ethnomusicology): Ahmad Jafari
Curatorial Advisors: Mansour Aziz, Golrokh Nafisi
Graphic Design: Karim Farah
Illustration: Golrokh Nafisi
Turkish Translation: Reza H. Baghanam, Aydin Sardariniya
Arabic Translation: Seri Boulmona, Sheren Samara
English Translation & Editing: Sara Faezypour, Moayed Hokan
Editing & Mastering of the Music Albums: Ehsan Abedi, Rud Studio
Photography: Mehran Danaei
Web Development: Ali Qaredaqi
Publisher: Barzakh, Beirut, Lebanon
Production: Paayaan Studio
