By Chris Young
Daily Bruin Staff
Music and mathematics have been linked together before, usually
in right-brain-left-brain pop culture. But world music group Axiom
of Choice demonstrates an innovative synthesis of a mathematical
idea with collective group improvisation.
“In mathematics, the Axiom of Choice allows the
mathematician to choose his elements without having to justify
those elements,” said Axion of Choice musical director Loga
Ramin Torkian in an interview at vocalist Mamak Khadem’s
house.
Sitting near an eclectic array of percussion instruments,
Torkian, who graduated from UCLA with a mathematics degree, talked
about the group’s name.
“It’s an appropriate name; we choose a lot of
traditional Persian elements and since we juxtapose them with
Western elements, we want to make sure that people know we’re
doing this consciously.”
Axiom of Choice, which performs at the Skirball Cultural Center
Thursday at 8 p.m., brings together Persian, Armenian, Western
European and other world music. It layers intricate Persian rhythms
with vocals and instruments that may not be familiar to Western
listeners, such as the duduk, djembe and Torkian’s
custom-built quarter-tone guitar. The group also occasionally
incorporates Persian poetry into the music. But it is not playing
traditional Persian music.
“Traditional Persian compositions are like spirals,”
Torkian said. “You come back to the beginning but not
exactly, a little further away every time. It feels very
“˜open’ to a Western audience.”
The group emphasized that its music is open to listeners of any
background, especially those interested in world music.
“It’s very melodic, very rhythmic. Those basic
elements anyone can relate to. Our music is heavily improvisational
also. It’s different than pop music, which has a particular
destination, a dance groove or a certain format which we
don’t necessarily follow,” Torkian said.
Axiom of Choice, which formed in 1992, is a group of
émigrés to the U.S. Three of the members ““ vocalist
Mamak Khadem, duduk player Ruben Haratoonian and percussionist Ando
Harutyunyan ““ are from Armenia. Cellist Martin Tillman is
Swiss and Torkian is Iranian.
The ensemble composes songs utilizing each of the players’
sounds. It might begin with a rhythmic pattern and find a Persian
melody that fits on top of that structure. Then every member adds
their own material, finding their own sounds to put into the
context. The result is no longer Persian, but Axiom’s
personal sound.
“Even though there’s individual freedom,
there’s a style and sound involved that’s unique to
Axiom of Choice. People can take a selection and identify it as our
group,” said Khadem, who has played with Torkian for a
decade.
“It’s very accessible to younger generations of
listeners, including first-generation Iranians. They can’t
listen to the classical stuff from Iran; it’s too depressing,
too involved,” Torkian laughed. “But they listen to
this music and it has those elements in it, somehow they relate to
it. It draws them.”
Torkian said that Axiom of Choice’s live performances
better represent the group’s craft than its two albums.
The group has a standard repertoire of about 12 songs, each one
averaging 10 minutes. Much of its music is improvisational ““
one player will spontaneously solo while the others support in the
background. Onstage, the musicians maintain musical cohesiveness
and tie their songs together with key signatures, predetermined
melodies or riffs and other subtle, nonverbal communication.
“The energy that is created between the five of us,
it’s so strong and positive that the audience gets it
immediately,” Khadem said. “When each person plays a
solo, it’s so beautiful every time I hear it.”
Often people have questions about some of the instruments Axiom
of Choice uses, such as the duduk or the quarter-tone guitar.
The duduk is a double-reed instrument. Its body is made out of
apricot wood and comes in different sizes to get different
pitches.
“The duduk most closely resembles the human voice, of any
instrument,” Harutyunyan said. “It has a sound that is
so haunting. Lots of people are interested when they hear it.
I’ve never met anyone who had negative feelings about
it.”
The quarter-tone guitar combines Western guitar constructions
with sound qualities of a Persian lute. A Persian lute has six
strings tuned as three sets of pairs and a limited playable speed
and tonal range. Torkian’s guitar allows for a sharper and
more percussive attack and greater range than the lute. Torkian
said there was a Romanian microtone school that used the
quarter-tone guitar in the 1800s, but today his instrument is
rare.
Torkian said that through the group’s complex intertwining
of rhythm, melody and energy, Axiom of Choice hopes to leave a body
of literature that other musicians can tap into and show that a
world music group can succeed.
“There’s lots of bands out there that are popular,
but musicians don’t care about those bands,”
Harutyunyan said. “It’s hard to get acceptance from
your peers. Once you’ve become a musicians’ musician,
that’s when you’re really established.”
MUSIC: For tickets or information on Axiom of
Choice call (323) 655-8587.