Shattering Silence: In Conversation w. Arif Mirbaghi

[intro music] 

Saba:
Hello, and welcome to The West Meeting Room. I'm Saba Mirabolghasemi, an undergraduate architectural studies student at the University of Toronto and a self-proclaimed storyteller. I'm very grateful to be hosting today's episode, taking you along an immersive sound journey. A little over a month ago, I had the magical opportunity of recording a conversation with Arif Mirbaghi, who is an incredible musician, composer, sound artist and storyteller from Toronto who is currently based in Tehran, Iran. From being a bassist in a progressive metal band, to theater, to delving into jazz and Iranian folk music, Arif has had quite a fascinating artist journey. In this episode, he walks us through his journey as a creator, and shares his insights and imaginings on the magical possibilities of storytelling through sound. Interspersed throughout our conversation, we'll be listening to some of his new music, recent, upcoming and unreleased tracks with his band Zuze. These pieces serve as the perfect soundscape to our dialogue and also offer a beautiful glimpse into his artistry. So, without further ado, here's the first track in our playlist, “Entezar” from his upcoming album Gole Sorkh, releasing October 1st. 

["Entezar” plays] 

Arif:
My name is Arif Mirbaghi. I am a musician and composer and sound designer who was born and raised in Canada, but currently based in my parent’s homeland, which is Iran. Tehran, Iran. 

Saba:
So, let's hear your origin story. When did your and how did your journey as a musician and composer begin? 

Arif:
I think the famous Carl Sagan line comes to mind when he says, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe.” And so, when I think about how I was sort of transported into this idea of being an artist, to me, it's not so much of when did this journey begin. But where did this journey begin? Because if I wanted to answer when, I think that that would be really difficult, because there wasn't really a moment in which sort of a light bulb went off and I said, today, I'm an artist, or tomorrow I want to be an artist, or I want to pursue this as a career. It was something that always kind of was with me.  

But if the question is, where did your journey begin? As an artist, I think I do have an answer for that. And that is something that I've come to realize more as I’ve grown up, which is that it has a lot to do with my being a first-generation immigrant. You know, I was raised in the suburbs, which is kind of this dull, hypnotic, lapping sameness. And when you grow up in an environment like that, I think that all of us, we tend to cling to those details that set us apart. So, for me, in like a vastly majority white population, my difference to cling to was being Iranian. And you know, sometimes that was a great source of pride. And sometimes that was a source of kind of embarrassment and humiliation, not that it should have been. But I was, at the time, different.  

But what it did create was like a springboard, like a whetstone or this kind of referential point of difference. It essentially created a margin. And I think that that's where stories exist - in margin. The question of like, when did I start to be an artist is sort of less important to me than where did my journey begin. And that journey in my mind began in margins! It began by first sort of questioning, you know, who am I in context of the community that I find myself in? 

Saba:
I am curious to hear if it, did it begin with music? Or did you delve into another kind of creative form and then kind of find your way to music? 

Arif:
I wouldn't say that music is exactly where I started as far as arts are concerned. My maternal grandfather was a guy named Jafar Petgar, who was an artist of some great repute in Iran. And he had many children, and practically all of his children went into the arts and the fine arts, visual arts. He was a painter. My early exposure to creativity was more painting. And it wasn't me myself painting. It’s that I was around people who were painting. You know, my mother was not a professional painter, but she liked to put colors on canvas. And I remember the smell of the oil paints and the various toxic chemicals that she used to achieve her art. And music was something that kind of came after. And that was because I have a sister who's a couple years older than me. And I think like many people who have siblings that are a little older than them, you look at them with starry eyes, and their tastes somehow become your own tastes. And so my sister first hit her sort of punk rock rebellious stage a few years before I hit mine. And so she had got a guitar. And I would sometimes sneak into her room and sort of make horrible sounds come out of the guitar. Those moments were kind of the first times that I realized I can be expressive in a nonverbal way. And for me, that was something that was really compelling. It's just something that stuck with me. 

Saba:
That's actually really, really cool. Because I always love hearing how artists first started out. Just that initial exposure, to see their progress and how their art has evolved over the years is really, really awesome. And it usually is kind of serendipitous.   

Arif:
Yeah, I think it has, I think there's something to be said about - a lot of my friends who are musicians, and I'm just using that as an example, first came across their instruments when someone around them, like in my case a sibling, played that instrument. And while that initial source, like in my case, my sister may not have pursued music, it was enough to put me on a path. And I think that that's kind of an important point. Because if we have a curiosity towards something, it really doesn't matter what it is. It's not necessarily - we need to sort of remove ourselves from that end goal. Us exhibiting our curiosity onto something could very well influence somebody else down a path that they may go for the rest of their life. And I've always just thought that that was a really beautiful point. And for anyone who has ever wanted to start something, but has been so caught up with, well, what's the point? What's the end goal? I think that it might serve as a reminder that we need not be so concerned with end goals, because we can't always predict what outcomes are. And sometimes our taking an action may direct somebody else to do something that can be the most meaningful decision in their life. 

Saba:
How has your art shifted and evolved over the years? 

Arif:
It's kind of a question of breadth. You know, like my earliest meaningful artistic practice was with a progressive punk like heavy metal band called Protest the Hero. Well, I think that most of your listeners are not going to recognize that name. But I guarantee that one or two of them, or a few of them right now are thinking: What? It was that guy?? It was very niche, progressive music and the people who like it really like it a lot. So that was a group that, you know, I was in from when I was 13, through 26 or something. And we did a lot of touring, and we toured the world and released many albums. And they're still going, but you know, when I left the group years ago, it was kind of because the weight of my desire to practice art beyond the kind of narrow scope of commercially driven heavy metal music was kind of interfering with my curiosity to explore like different mediums, different disciplines, different practices.  

I was kind of bursting laterally to the left, and to the right,of what the group could offer me at that point. And while it was really kind of difficult to leave behind a group that's, you know, fairly successful like that, I sort of challenged myself to find the kind of emotional permission I needed to play jazz music and country music and reggae and hip hop and expose myself to a world of rhythms and players and perspectives that I otherwise couldn't have if I had just stayed on that narrow, single, albeit fairly successful, single rail of heavy metal. And that's just music. And so, you know, all of a sudden, when I kind of shifted away from that, I had all this time to explore other disciplines. And so, I worked in theater and sound art and creative writing and installation, and so on and so forth. So, I guess it's kind of like, the evolution of the art has been sort of a lateral expansion of experience and perspective. I probably play to a much smaller audience now, but with a much wider scope. And I think that if the question is, how has my art evolved over the years? That's probably how I would answer it. That I now try to embrace whatever comes in and find a meaningful way of then pushing that out. 

Saba:
I'd love to hear a bit about your journey. As an artist, how do you approach composing a new piece or creating sound art? Like what keeps you going and creating and propels you forward in that creative process? 

Arif:
Well, I have always felt, and I think that many people can relate to this a kind of creative restlessness. You know, well,let me take a different tack. You know I kind of think of creativity as like an old friend. And we don't always get along, but we do love each other. And so, we make it work. So sometimes creativity can be this really easy process. You know it's, I think it was, sometimes it's like sitting at a picnic table and having a seagull crap on your shoulder. It's just kind of really sudden and present and unignorable thing that's happened at you. And there's nothing you can do about it, but you have to respond to it in some way.  

Other times, though, I kind of think that creativity needs to be coaxed. It's kind of that emotional wreck that’s sobbing in the corner, and you're sort of the best friend saying, you know, come on, buddy, look at me, we're gonna get through this together. And I've always thought that it was important not just to wait around for the seagull to crap on your shoulder. I think that there's something to be done about, you know, like, my creative process is kind of about coaxing, and about trying and about failing and about being a bit uncomfortable. I used to say that artists must have like a chemical dependency on discomfort, because there have been so many moments in which I have sort of put myself out there and humiliated myself in some way on a stage where like I didn't play the songs well, or my theater experiences, where I screwed up my lines, and I'm just not a very energetic actor and those kind of things.  

But I guess to answer the question of sort of what the journey is, I have always kind of felt like it's sort of something that's pulled me along. I have never been considered not being creative. I've never considered not being an artist, I really couldn't imagine my life in any other way. I mean, I really do enjoy storytelling. And, you know, here's an interesting thing. My friend Bruce MacKinnon used to say that, you know, you play a note and listen for the next one. And my partner in Iran, who's a painter, she says, you know, you draw a line and kind of see where it goes. And I think that writ large, that's how I have approached creativity, is to kind of take a little step and see what the next step ought to be. It's not a very scientific process. But it's one that kind of, it kind of gets the job done. Like you need to invite creativity into your life somehow, not just expected to happen to you all the time. Does that make sense? 

Saba:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I really loved your point about embracing discomfort. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on vulnerability, like in the creative process. And when you're creating a piece, I imagine that you're putting, you're putting out parts of yourself, like in each of those pieces. So, what does that process feel like? Maybe what sensations and emotions and thoughts kind of envelop your mind as you're creating? And like, what does it feel like to, to publish that piece and release it out into the world and kind of knowing that people are going to listen to it, and they're going to hear those parts of yourself that are kind of revealed? So, I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of that, if that even makes sense. Is that a coherent question?   

Arif:
Yeah. You know, what I think is very interesting is, in some ways, artists are probably the least qualified people to respond to their art. I mean, if I release a piece of music, it's after having heard that piece of music hundreds of times, and I don't think I have any fans out there that are gonna listen to my music hundreds of times, you know. And so every time I listen to it, I kind of do lose a sense of objectivity that, I might not have ever had that objectivity to start with. And where this ties into the question of vulnerability is that we feel naturally compelled to kind of put ourselves out there and to be vulnerable. But maybe we need to remind ourselves that nobody is ever going to hear the work in the way that we hear it. It's completely and utterly unique to us simply by virtue of the fact that we were the people who created it. And that's something I think is difficult to grasp, but it's important to grasp.  

And, you know, as an example, I would say, you know, when I was a teen, like many moody teenagers, I loved to Dostoevsky. I would just swallow Dostoevsky whole. And what I always found kind of interesting about his work is that, you know, here you have this guy who was a religious man, he's this kind of devout religious person. But when he wrote about atheism, he wrote it with such passion and fervor that atheists clung on to his arguments in extraordinary ways. Like he did more for atheism in his time than perhaps you know, anyone else. And he didn't want it to be this way. He wanted it to be this kind of religious thing. So he didn't really have any control over the way that it was being perceived. And I'm not saying that we should remove all intent from work. I think that it's important that we have a clear idea of what we want to say, but not be so attached to it that we become surprised or offended if somebody reacts differently to it. Or somebody when applying their own perspectives to it, finds something that maybe we didn't see in the first place. And I don't know I guess that that's kind of interesting. And maybe that is the vulnerability. Maybe the vulnerability is that we do have something in our heart that we want to say, but we cannot guarantee that it's going to be heard the way we intend to say it. 

Saba:
Leading us into the next chapter of our conversation is “Little Did He Know” from Zuze’s recently released album Alangu.  

["Little Did He Know” plays] 

Saba: 
Something that I wanted to ask you now is, is about what you've learned about yourself along the way throughout your artist’s journey. And maybe this is part of that and, but if you'd like to elaborate on that question, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Arif:
Sure. I guess it is kind of a perpetual journey of self discovery in some ways. You know, I guess we're conduits in some way. We're conduits of art. And if I've discovered anything about myself, it's that in the best of moments, I can surprise myself. Sometimes when everything aligns just right and I create something, I can actually take a step back and say, oh, wow, that was me. And that feeling of unfamiliarity with oneself in those positive moments is really compelling and is really beautiful. And I guess it's something, I guess is a moment of growth really. You know, I forget who it was who said it but I thought it was a great line, that a good conversation is when you say something you didn't know you knew. And I think that the creative process has a, is also caught up in this idea of saying something that you didn't know, you knew. I think that we all have art and creativity and statements and expressions and ideas within us. But finding the tools and finding the means and the transit by which to get them out of us, is the process. 

Saba:
That's wonderful. Thank you so much for phrasing that so eloquently. I think it is a really interesting process, creating any, whether it's art, or whatever else you're putting out, is a really unique experience of unraveling who you are, and also finding, I guess, forging a sense of belonging and community and understanding your part and your place in the world. 

Arif:
You know, it's funny. I think about it sometimes as a process of like a fog lifting around an idea. You know, you can try and have some idea of what the end result is going to be. But you really, really don't know for sure. I mean, for example, like Monet has that famous work London Bridge. I mean, I think it’s Monet. It's got to be Monet. London Bridge. And it's basically just fog. And it's really essentially nothing there. But what his process was that he painted London Bridge, and then a layer of fog, and then another layer of fog, and then another layer of fog and another layer of fog, until eventually this thing disappeared. But I've always found it really beautiful that the subject is there behind all those layers of paint. That London Bridge actually is there. And maybe, I don't know. I don't know, maybe I've sort of lost the point here. But I think that a lot of times the idea that we start with and the idea that we end with are quite different. And it's in that difference that we discover new things about ourselves and discover new things about our practice and discover new ways in which we wish to engage with our medium and thereby with our audience and thereby with ourselves. It’s some twisted, three-pronged approach. 

Saba:
Yes. I like the idea of the fog lifting. I think that's a really interesting way of viewing it. 

Arif:
Well, I was gonna say, I mean, I think it was Michelangelo when they asked, how do you carve an elephant from a block of marble or something? I mean, your listeners are going to know this for sure. And he said you look at a block of marble and cut away anything that doesn't look like an elephant. And there's something to be said about that in the artistic process. I think we have an idea of where we want to go or what we want to carve out of ourselves. And we just slowly chip away at it. And we might not ever get to that end goal. But in the chipping away, I think that we find a more focused version of who we are and what we wish to say and how we wish to engage with our audience. 

Saba:
This is “Gole Sorkh” from Arif’s upcoming album, Gole Sorkh, releasing October 1st.  

["Gole Sorkh” plays] 

Saba: 
So now I'm kind of going to delve into, I mean, it's still along the same lines of questioning, but maybe more specifically about sound. So what do you find so compelling about sound as a medium? 

Arif:
You know, sound is subtle and powerful. And I think as a bassist, I can, I tend to really appreciate those adjectives. Visual stimulation is really strong, and it's present. And it's difficult to ignore. But sound kind of requires some discernment. You know, I find, you know, when I close my eyes, and I'm listening to something, I feel as though there are receptors in my brain firing off that perhaps are always firing off, but I hadn't sort of realized that before. I think that I just enjoy the intimacy of sound, I just enjoy the way information sort of trickles into one’s ears. I just think it's like a really beautiful, beautiful thing. And I know that, you know, language can be conveyed through sound, but I tend to think that, you know, something like music can be a beautiful thing, because it doesn't hide behind language. You know, in some way, it's expressive, but it doesn't force us to abstract our thoughts into words. You know, because words are kind of inherently divorced of any particular meaning. Like, I'm looking at a chair right now. And the word chair and the sound that it makes has nothing to do with the function or form or idea of that chair. I’ve just happened to agree with however many other people agree with the fact that a chair is the sort of thing that you sit on. But music doesn't have those pretenses. I mean, music, it just sort of is what it is. The sine wave is not hiding behind the pant leg of anything other than the wave form that it is. And that's beautiful, really. I mean, try and find a medium as honest and transparent as that. 

Saba:
I love that. Yeah, I never, I never thought about it that way. That like how language kind of, it does obscure the truth, like it can actually be deceitful. 

Arif:
Absolutely. Absolutely it can be. You know, I tend to think about this a lot. Because I, maybe you can relate to this as well, when I was growing up there wasn't really a Farsi language school. Like, there was one, but it was more of kind of an excuse for the parents to get together and like gossip in the community or whatever. And the kids didn't learn anything. So I am essentially illiterate in Farsi. I mean, I've come a long way in the time that I've been here in that I can send simple text messages. But to read, you know, literature that I would otherwise enjoy in English, I mean, I just can't do it. And so I learned Farsi and I speak Farsi in this illiterate way that was learned completely by ear. And in that way, I actually feel a connection to my grandmother who was born in a village and also never learned how to read and write. And sometimes I get a cheap laugh out of Iranians here when I tell them that it's like I'm from the furthest Iranian village you could possibly imagine. But I do think that's interesting, because the way that I fundamentally interact with the Farsi language and the way that I interact with English are completely different. Because English will always have that written and read and that aspect of literacy that Farsi, for me, doesn't have. Farsi exists in a world of sounds. And sometimes I find out, oftentimes, I find that I've been mispronouncing a word for years. And that's funny in a lot of ways, but it's also like, Who cares? I’m getting my point across. 

Saba:
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I also, I mean, I did go to, I had private Farsi classes. But I didn't go to a school. My brother had the misfortune of having to go to like a formal like school on like the weekends to learn Farsi. But I kind of learned it in the comfort of my home. I still find that I'm like on the outside looking in when I speak Farsi, or when I read Farsi. It definitely is really time consuming. And I just, I never feel like I fully grasp the meaning of words. And I also miss a lot of references when people are talking or when I'm like immersed in the space where everyone is just a native speaker. And it just, I struggle. But I really loved that idea of like, it's just, it is just sounds. 

Arif:
There is melody and there is cadence to the way we speak. But since we're able to pick out words from it, we find ourselves divorced from what those melodies and what those cadences are. But in something like music, I mean, you really don't have that experience. Because we can listen to a note, let's say a G. You can listen to it, I can listen to it. But we don't have this other outside influence coming in and telling us specifically what that note is supposed to mean, or the feeling that it's supposed to evoke. And so all of those other things are completely just based on context and space and the moment that we happen to be in. And in my mind, that's just a lot deeper of a connection than this very sort of technical thing that is language. That, you know, I'm going to string a bunch of words together and a bunch of sounds together and it has a very specific meaning. I think that we almost returned to this idea of fog, and we're talking about music, because it doesn't come out and directly say you should feel like this, but it has the power to influence you to feel in a certain way. And that's just extraordinary.  

And yeah, and it's beyond language. It's older than language. It's something that has always been with us. Something that I really enjoy, and I was talking to a friend recently about where the, what is the border of improvisation and composition. Some improvisations feel like spontaneous compositions, whatever that means, or doesn't mean. And so, as an example, we were talking about a little kid banging on a pot and a pan. So when I was a kid, I certainly did this, probably you did this as well, probably there are thousands of kids around the world right now banging on pots and pans. So is this child in that moment improvising? Or are they simply playing their part in this orchestra, in this river of song that has existed for time immemorial of kids banging on pots and pans? And I just think that is so beautiful to think about. That there has always been one song and it's the song of children playing, and we all participate in it in our own way. And then after our part is done, we step aside and allow the next row of musicians to come in and bang on the pots and pans. And... am I making any sense? I don't know. 

Saba:
I think that makes a lot of sense actually. I think that's really interesting. I think also, I don't know if we can connect it to the point of like, who has, who can call themselves an artist, or who can call themselves like a musician or just who has like the authority to, you know, play with sound and exploring music and be seen as like legitimate in their pursuit of that. Like, I mean, I know this is just about children banging on pots. But I think that also goes to say like some people, some of those children will go on to continue to kind of play around with sound and music and explore that avenue in in more kind of concrete ways. And while others might just let go that as something that they find like fascinating or worthy of pursuit. Or like maybe it's also yeah, and I was always fascinated by music and I did, I did a play some piano and then some flute, and then some cello, violin. I did everything but I didn't really stick with it, just because, I mean, it does take a lot of discipline. And you do have to have that genuine like curiosity to pursue it. But I also was strung up on like the perfectionism. I mean, that is a bit of an excuse of it all. And like whether or not I actually can like do this. And I mean, I never explored like composition, but I think yeah, I really loved your point about um, children and banging pots and how like that is - I mean, that is that first I guess initial exposure to like the power of sound and just how fascinating it is. 

Arif:
Well, absolutely. I think that, you know, I think that you've touched on a number of really important points there. And one of them is, is that I don't think that it's important that everybody pursues something to a professional degree. I think that this is one of the great lies of capitalism, is that all of our hobbies have to be monetized in some way. If the end goal is to break the silence with a beautiful sound, if that's the end goal of being a musician, then this is an incredibly achievable goal for anybody. But we tend to fall into these traps and call it perfectionism, or call it what you will. Or call it a, maybe an inability to sort of see a future in it, or something like that. But I really think that's a shame. Because being able to participate in something like music, just to express oneself, is the whole point of why people got into music.  

I think that like you know, coronavirus laid this absolutely bare - the pandemic absolutely brought this to light because all of a sudden, there were no shows, studios were all shut down. Nobody was rehearsing together, everybody was, all these musicians, professional or otherwise, were merely relegated to themselves and their instrument. And it was such a, it was such a beautiful thing to come out of a very distraught, distressing scenario. But it really highlighted for me just what the actual importance of playing an instrument is. I mean, yeah, some people are gonna take it to the degree that they want to compose and write music and put it out into the world and have people listen to it. But that is not the glory and the benefit, and the beauty of music. The glory and the benefit and the beauty of music is really just shattering silence with something beautiful, or sitting around a campfire, you know, playing the three songs that you know. Or being at a house party, where there's a piano and playing heart and soul with some stranger because everybody knows how to play heart and soul. Those moments are a lot more meaningful than this idea of like, I have to pursue things to the nth degree and I have to go after, get a degree in it. And I have to be the best or I have to go perform it. And I really wish that we would sort of put those things aside. And if it's not music, then something else. Then paint! You know, I find it amazing that if you ask 100 children, do you draw? Every single one of them will say yes. I'm borrowing this from someone else. But if you ask 100 adults the same question, so many of them will say no. So where did we lose that? Where do we lose this idea that we are allowed to participate in it? When did we stop giving ourselves permission to be creative? It's such a shame, you know, and in moments where we are isolated and have nowhere else to turn. Well, like, you know, how beneficial is it to be able to have something inwards that we can turn to, to bring out of ourselves and to just enjoy it for the mere sake of enjoying the thing. And so in saying all that, I really encourage you to like pick up one of those instruments that you played and play it. I mean, even if you play it badly, just play it, have fun with it. 

Saba:
You mentioned this earlier when you're talking about how your art shifted and evolved, but what precipitated your move to Iran? 

Arif:
So before I came to Iran, I was doing a lot of performing and some arranging in a group called Zuze, which was some of my dearest friends in Toronto. And we were playing Iranian folk tunes, but arranged in kind of like a, like a folk jazz Afrobeats type. Like we're playing jazz versions of Iranian folk tunes, and people were really enjoying them. And I would occasionally do interviews where people would ask me questions about the songs or people would ask me questions about Iran. And I increasingly felt guilty answering those questions because I had no real experience of what Iran was like. I mean, I had come here once or twice and had stayed with family and everything was really wonderful. But, that didn't to me amount to enough of an experience that I could with any authority, answer the questions that were being posed to me.  

And so I applied for the Ontario Arts Council International Residency program, which is an extraordinary program that I encourage artists across all mediums to participate in, which allows you, if you claim heritage elsewhere, to go and investigate that heritage, return to Canada and create work that is reflective of that experience. What an extraordinary program that is, and it's something that I think should be very inherent to Canadian values, and it's something that we should cherish. And by cherishing it, again, I'm trying to encourage your listeners to go and participate in it. So anyway, I went. And that's when I realized, it was like a wave came over me. And I said that I have sort of neglected this too long in my life. There are experiences in Iran that I couldn't have in Canada. And if I want to better understand the work that I am interested in pursuing, Iranian work and topics surrounding immigration, first generation immigration-ism, multiculturalism, these kinds of topics, I kind of need to go through that process. I kind of need to experience what it's like to be placed in an unfamiliar surrounding and try to recontextualize how I understand myself. And so, when I got here, and I realized that there's this much work to do, I kind of just stayed.  

And, you know, a lot of Iranians asked me why since so many are trying to leave the country. But I think that it's maybe important for Iranians, or for people who are claiming heritage somewhere but we're born somewhere else, to really go and investigate that. Like, why should it be a one-way street of Iranians coming to Canada and bringing culture to share, but us not going over there or not coming here, and experiencing what sort of life is like here? You know, I guess I had an identity crisis, to sort of say it lightly. But I do think that it's important. And in the time that I have been here, I have learned so much about myself. I have learned so much about, as a result, so much about Canadian culture and Iranian culture and the identities that exist between the two. And if I really want to pursue work, and I want to want to make art in this, surrounding these ideas, it just feels like the right place to be for me at the moment. 

Saba:
This is a “Starry Night”, an unreleased track by Arif and Zuze and their sessions with Local Dish. 

[“Starry Night” plays.] 

Saba: 
Going back to your, I guess I don't know if I would call it a return to Iran, I don't know how you would phrase that. Was it like coming home or coming to one of your homes? I don't know, what was that experience like when you first stepped foot in Iran? And did you kind of experience that process of reconnecting to - I don't know, I want to say your roots. But again, I don't know how you kind of conceptualize this experience. 

Arif:
Well, that's well, that's precisely it. I think that the first-generation immigrant experience is exactly that. Is that, how do we sort of make sense of it? I think that we have identities that are very movable. I am more Iranian when I'm hanging out with my non-Iranian friends. And I'm more Canadian when I'm hanging out with my Iranian friends. It's something that, I find it really interesting the way that children of immigrants learn to communicate and to operate in different gears. You have one hat that you wear at school, you have one hat that you wear at home. You have one hat that you wear when you're visiting relatives, you have one hat that you wear when you're at your friend's house for dinner. And, you know, this is like pretty sophisticated interpersonal stuff. And I think that sometimes we don't really give immigrants and children of immigrants maybe enough credit for navigating these very difficult terrains from like a young age.  

So you know, when it came to Iran, I honestly don't know. I mean, I felt very, very Canadian when I, when I first came. And there's still moments in which I feel super Canadian there. You know, if I'm, if I'm in the bank, and, you know, this is gonna sound like me complaining, when I'm in when I'm in the bank, and like, nobody's waiting in line, and people are kind of pushing, you know, whatever [laughs]. I say, Oh, I miss the polite Canadian stereotype, which is also such a trite, but it's not something that can be so pinned down, so easily pinned down. And I think that that's sort of a problem that we maybe have when we think about immigrants and immigration culture and bi-cultured people and people who claim a heritage outside of the place that they live. And all of these kinds of questions is that we think that it's black and white. Or we can intellectualize that it's maybe on a spectrum, but we don't really have the vocabulary to describe that spectrum.  

I mean, the whole thing is just, it's the big wash, and it changes from time to time. I mean, it's, it's just like the weather. I mean, I can occasionally have clouds rolling in where I feel particularly Iranian under them, and then the clouds leave and I'd be particularly Canadian under this new weather. It's not something that I think is easily defined. And it's not something that - I'm almost sort of giving up on trying to define it in some ways. I'm not Iranian like Iranians here. I come from a position of privilege. And I want to acknowledge that, and I do my best to acknowledge that I can leave if I want. I have a credit card, and I have resources in the country, outside of the country. I speak English, which is a huge advantage. I think that a lot of people maybe haven't considered what the experience in the internet is like if you don't speak English, for example. It's a much, much more fragmented, much smaller place if you don't have access to those things.  

And so, I do come from a place of extraordinary privilege. And so, it wouldn't be fair for me to call myself Iranian in that sense, because I have not had to leap over hurdles that many people have. But at the same time, I can't fully say that I'm Canadian, in that kind of white settler, colonial Canadian way either. Because I remember my horrible house league hockey coaches that would humiliate me based on the length of my last name, you know, and things like that. So I've never fully felt a part of that suburban Canadian identity either. And we just sort of get lost in between these two worlds. And so our identity is something that just shifts to accommodate our surroundings. And that's amazing in some ways, because I think there's a lot of art in it. But it does require a lot of self reflection. And it does require a lot of patience with oneself. And we have to be kind to ourselves in order to understand better how these dynamics are at play.  

You know, something that I find very interesting, something that I really love is the way that songs kind of immigrate through communities. For example, when I was a teenager, or a pre-teen, possibly, we came to Iran for three months. And I bought a bunch of like music books, and I took them back to Canada with me, and throughout the years, I would occasionally mull through them. And when we put Zuze or that band together, we really leaned on these books to come up with like some melodies. And what I found very interesting is that some of those melodies now, since my friends in Toronto they know the songs, they've learned the songs, they might not be a jazz standard, but it's in their repertoire. And it occasionally makes its way into their sets, whether I'm there or not. So long after I went back to there, long after I left and I went to Iran, these songs still exist in the fingers and the breath of these performers that are playing them in Toronto. And I just think that's so cool to think that like a Kurdish song that I pulled out of a book that I originally bought in Iran, but then brought to Canada is now still being performed in Canada by people, even though I'm not there.  

And then in turn, when I came back to Iran, I showed the same melody to some players here, who discovered it for the first time here. And so there's this idea of like, this cross kind of immigration of music and song that sort of happened that I just find really, really amazing. Like, how does the jazz standard become a jazz standard? How does the song sort of enter the great songbook? I think it's just repetition. You know, people know it, and they play it and other people like it. And so they learned it, and they sort of play it some more. And I kind of feel as though I am at a place where I'm kind of showing music to people, like, you know, whether it's Iranians, whether it's Canadians, I'm showing them some Iranian music, or Iranians I'm showing them some Western music, or maybe giving them some context that maybe they didn't know before. And it's not that I'm some great person that knows all of this music. But I think that it has something to do with embracing the ultimate role of the first generation experience, which is this kind of ambassadorial place between these two cultures.  

Not to say that we're gatekeepers of those cultures, but we can do a lot to bridge information and to bridge ideas and to bring two otherwise fairly disparate identities together in sort of unique ways. And this has been a specific example of one of the ways that has really resonated with me and been very meaningful and rewarding to me. So one of the ideas that I'd like, that I am launching here in Iran is a project called Shahre Farang, which kind of mean the sadness of separation, I guess, in this instance. But it's essentially a record label. And its aim is to bring in formal recordings of musicians in Tehran and across Iran to a wider audience. And by that, I mean by informal recordings. I mean, not a traditional album that is released on our record label at great expense. These are homemade analog recordings capturing Iranian musicians in their most comfortable environments, performing intimate tunes, intimate music. And so I'm in the process of compiling these recordings now, in the hopes of being able to release one, hopefully once a month, once every couple of months to whoever might be interested in something. Like it's, it's not always easy for Iranian musicians to have an audience outside of the country, given that Spotify and Bandcamp and Apple Music and the, you know, the streaming services that we have, are inaccessible to them because of sanctions. And so I think that there are a lot of people who are very curious to hear about what's going on in these communities in Iran and don't always know where to turn. And I hope that I can be a good facilitator and create a resource for people who might be keen and curious to hear what the music is like on the ground level here in Iran. Provide a resource for them to be able to go and year these wonderful, wonderful performances, so people can look out for that in the next couple of months. 

Saba:
This is “Vineh Pervaneh”, another unreleased track by Zuze and sessions with Local Dish.   

["Vineh Pervaneh” plays.] 

Saba: 
And that's a wrap for this week's episode of The West Meeting Room featuring the incredible Arif Mirbaghi. Thank you so much to Arif for sharing his insights, experiences and his beautiful music here with us on the show. To learn more about Arif and stay up to date on his musical releases, you can follow him on Instagram @arif.mirbaghi and SoundCloud as well. We'll be sure to leave all of his details in the show notes. Thank you so much to Braeden Doane and Day Milman for their help in producing and broadcasting this episode, and a big thank you goes out to you, our listeners. We'd love to hear from you. You can follow us on Instagram @HartHouseStories and Twitter @HHpodcasting. We release weekly episodes every Saturday at 7am on CiUT 89.5 FM. As always, thanks so much for tuning in and see you next week in The West Meeting Room. To close out today's episode. This is “Shahre Farang” from Arif’s upcoming album Durneshan. 

[“Shahre Farang” song plays]