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'the journey into my mind is not easy...
...I have mountains and valleys inside of me!'
The Persian Sufi mystic and poet Rumi is one of the
most read and most loved poets in the world. Countless translations line not only bookshop shelves, but now also Instagram posts and Facebook updates.
But there's more to poetry in Persian than Rumi.
Bidel
The Ansan seeks to step into this gap, and recuperates neglected but all the more noteworthy Sufi lyrics. We put into music works by Hafez, Saadi, Bidel, and many more, and offer English translations (often available for the first time ever), having committed ourselves to making accessible the unknown pearls of Persian poetic art.
The mystical bird Simorgh ("thirty birds"), famous in Persian legend and literature.
Persian poetry, and Sufi poetry in particular, is rich in thick metaphorical descriptions: the beloved's hair becomes a way of catching the lover, for example, each individual hair of the luscious curly strands a trap for the helpless heart to get caught in. Ansan's music dives into those metaphors, detangles them for us a little, unweaving density, picking apart words in harmonies that tug at something deep inside...only to knit those dancing melodies and wayward meanings back together again into an intoxicatingly intriguing carpet of sound and sense. Mystical. Magical...
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