1ej

Jān-e Kharābāt

A Night of Afghan Music in Tehran
A Music Cassette Book-Album Edition

Code: SDĀ.DG-2&3
Recording Date: January 2020
Publishing Date: April 2024
Curator: Ahmadali Kadivar
Vocals & Harmonium: Kabir Hamid Masoumi
Rubab: Alirezā Rubabi
Tabla: Gholamrezā Mohamadi
Rubab: Hamidrezā Mohamadi
Ethnography: Ahmad Jafari
Illustration: Golrokh Nafisi

The Music Cassette Book-Album edition of “Jan-e Kharābā” is an exquisite version of the music book-album, capturing the essence of a night of Afghan music held in a house in Tehran during the winter of 2020. This spontaneous event, with no prior planning, followed its own internal and collective motives, giving the music album a fluid quality reminiscent of the stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Each moment of this approximately two-hour recording transitions into a new space, situation, and surprise. The preparation of the music album aimed to capture every sound from the night—the singer’s voice, instrument tuning, crowd noise, and excitement—preserving the authenticity of the entire experience.

Accompanying the music album is a detailed text narrative explaining what transpired during the gathering, the motivations behind it, and how it ultimately became a music album. The “Jān-e Kharābāt” Music Cassette Book-Album is a more exquisite version of the “Jān-e Kharābāt” album, released as two sixty-minute cassettes with an accompanying booklet. These cassettes have been duplicated at real-time speed using top-of-the-line equipment, ensuring a sound quality that surpasses most other cassettes. These books are very elegantly designed and carefully hand-made and bound, showcasing a high level of craftsmanship and attention to detail that you will appreciate beyond the audio experience.

“Jān-e Kharābāt” is published as music book-albums in 100-page bilingual pocket books. Inside these books, a QR code allows you to download and listen to the music album. The booklets in the Music Cassette Book-Album versions also include a QR code, so owners have access to both the digital album and the cassette. Each book comes with a unique serial number to facilitate the music download. This new product, which combines two different mediums, is the second product in continuation of the previous product of Sedākhāne, the musical poster, which was well received.