Name: Danûk
Members: Ferhad Feyssal (vocals), Hozan Peyal (buzuqi), Yazan Ibrahim (guitarist), Tarik Aslan (erbane), Michael League (bass), and Ronas Sheikhmous (mey, bilur, zorna)
Interviewee: Ferhad Feyssal
Nationalities: Syrian-Kurdish (Ferhad Feyssal, Hozan Peyal Yazan Ibrahim, Ronas Sheikhmous), Turkish-Kurdish (Tarik Aslan), Gholan Heights (Yazan Ibrahim), American (Michael League)
Current release: The new Danûk album Morîk is out via Omni Sound.
Recommendations:
1. Come, Take a Gentle Stab: Selected Poems by Kurdish writer Salim Barakat. More information here.
2. Malva by Kurdish painter Omar Hamdi  

If you enjoyed this Danûk interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.  



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

There is a difference between listening and enjoying music for me.

Listening takes me to the technical details, the instruments used, the rhythms and the melodic structure, a musical analysis in an involuntary way. As for enjoying music, I can let go of this analytical process and I see the musical story told like a movie. Most of the time it is devoid of people, especially in classical music.

And in the style of Kurdish a Capela ballad singing - which is called Deng Bagi - I find myself void of any existential feelings like a body or any other senses. I just feel the spirit coming out of me, I become nothingness, the air crosses me, and I become that voice.

My eyes remain open, but I can't see anything.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

Personally, I started music at a relatively late age. I got my first guitar at 21. It was an old Russian-designed guitar, but I was very happy to own it. I knew only two chords and a very simple melody. In my hometown, there were no guitar teachers because most people played traditional instruments.

I can remember clearly when I brought the guitar home I went to my room and turned off the lights and started playing that simple melody and every time I finished playing, I would stand and bow with indescribable happiness imagining there was an audience. My mother saw me and said, “My son has lost his mind.”

Since that time my life has completely changed and now, I am bowing before that audience that I imagined.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

As I said earlier, I started to play and study music as a young adult. So, I would say that my connection with music at that age was mainly through dance. I learnt folk dances from wedding and celebrations.

In my society, there is no formal dance training, but it’s a natural and familiar activity that gets passed down through the generations during social gatherings. This exposed me to a large repertoire of folk songs and from there my love for this music just grew.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

The first musical instrument for me was the guitar. After I entered the College of Music, I studied the piano for three years as an additional instrument. These instruments created a good auditory background and a proper understanding of harmony and musical theories.

Alongside my own instrument is the buzuqi, played my old friend Hozan Peyal, with whom I founded the Danûk band. The buzuqi gave me a lot in terms of understanding oriental scales (maqams) and how to harmonize them with the guitar.

And the most valuable thing in terms of what inspired me was listening to classic music and Kurdish traditional music and thinking about ways to bring the later to new audiences.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Our debut album is titled Morîk, which is Kurdish for "pearl." We choose this name as a metaphor for discovering a treasure that was buried and forgotten in a vast, shadowy sea of forgetfulness.

The album combines freshly produced reinterpretations of 100-year-old wax cylinder recordings that we discovered in museum archives with new arrangements of traditional Kurdish wedding melodies.  

We believe it is more crucial than ever to preserve, share, and reclaim our traditions and heritage. It is a fact that the conflict in our country is endangering our culture. The oral transmission of Kurdish music and traditions is currently being disrupted by the mass exodus of young people and artists. This is what motivates us to keep creating.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

Danûk’s sounds is a modernized version of Kurdish folk that preserves the essence of our heritage.

We use the traditional daff, zorna and buzuqi, and mix it with electric guitar, bass and flamenco guitar with the aim to put Kurdish music on an international stage.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

As mentioned previously, there is a research and heritage preservation element to our new album. We contacted two phonograph archives in Berlin and Vienna which we knew held 100-year-old wax cylinder recordings from our homeland. We received the digitalization of these recordings via email.

When listening to them for the first time, I got goosebumps. There was a loud white noise covering acapela voices of shepherds and priests. This phonograph white sound was irritating at first, but after some time it became part of the melody. We even tried to re-create it by having the sounds of the shaking of the metal rings of the daff over the vocals in our song “Axir Zemana”.



From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

There are three sounds that we are drawn to and try to integrate into our music. The first sound is the buzuqi, which is the storyteller of our songs. Its tremolo is dreamy, energetic and mystical.

After that comes the mey, a traditional wood wind instrument similar to a clarinet but with a much deeper nostalgic vibrational sound that is able to travel through mountains.

And finally, the daff, a percussion instrument with entrancing, powerful and martial sound.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

We usually try to use traditional songs as the foundation, and then build upon them, adding solos, intros and new sounds.

In general, oriental music is not harmonized, as it is mostly horizontal melodies that are composed in microtones. We try to harmonize it as simply as possible to try to preserve the original sounds but adding to the vertical dimension of the composition through harmonization.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

“Xelîlo Lawo” is one of the songs of our new album Morîk. The song is a reinterpretation of one of the archival songs that dates to 1902.



The original recording was a shepherd’s voice signing a love song. I listened to the recordings for hours trying to understand the lyrics. Once I transcribed them, Hozan and I worked on original melody identifying the scales and structure.

After that, we composed the music for it inspired by the fantasy of a journey through time to a past era.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I am a strong believer in science and academics, not necessarily to develop creativity, but to understand it first.

I am currently studying music at the University of Sussex in the UK, and I am very interested in music and society and their influence on each other. I am very excited about the study of the neuroscience of music.

For me, there was always a question at any party or festival I attended, about what brings all the people together to hear certain music, and why a song can move or make people dance, even without understanding the lyrics.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

The way I compose music can be described as an invisible aura that grabs me.

I lose the ability to communicate and speak, and I find myself playing while I see myself as if I were a camera outside my body. Then I continue in an undirected torrent like a wild horse running after the melody, and then I fall to the ground exhausted. It’s like an orgasm of the soul.

It’s an experience that cannot be planned or controlled. In today’s life, where everything needs to be scheduled, I think it’s important to give oneself freedom and disconnection to allow this creativity to flow.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Writing a song or performing a piece of music is a very deep process for me.

It is not a mechanical process; it does not depend on the mathematical or arithmetic principle of music only. Rather, it is a way to re-shape our thoughts or an accumulation of feelings. It’s a way to process these feelings in a higher way than a conversation with a friend or lover, as often, no words are needed.

The more depth there is in the idea, the more the melody can reach a greater number of people who may have gone through the same experience at some point of life.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

Classical music always gives me a cinematic imagination of other worlds.

One of the most deeply touching pieces of music for me is a piece by Chopin - Nocturne in E Flat Major (Op. 9 No. 2). It is an emotional piece, simple and complex at the same time, and that to me, is where its secret lies.



If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

The future needs more musicians and more musical diversity. There is a general tyranny of Western music over the world because of technological, economic and political domination. The West should open its doors to hear others in all forms.

I hope in the future that people will be able to listen to each other, to share their heritage and folklore, to hold festivals on a global level, like the football World Cup, but for popular music. In my imagination, one day peace would prevail and instead of wars, musical wars would take place. Musicians from France, India or China would invade a country with the sounds of a festival horn, not a war horn.

This would be the only type of war I could support.