Dirar Kalash works in different musical and acoustic fields which shift from silence, tranquility, and noise. Using various instruments and techniques, he creates music that surpassed the prevalent concepts and definitions, and challenges the hierarchal relations and binaries in the East’s and West’s logic, and the old and new. On the one hand, his musical practice is based on sound as material. On the other, sound as a medium. This practice blends composing with free improvisation, depending on how sounds and the interrelations are dealt with and employed.
“In the album The Same River Twice, which is composed of two tracks, one of which exceeds 30 minutes, performed by Dirar Kalash as a live solo act on the oud, he liberates himself from the inheritance complex and how to deal with the oud as an instrument connected to a specific heritage. It is interesting and rare to see the oud played without the need of an introduction to ease the performance to listeners. The piece starts with a forceful momentum and continues in that mode, as if he is stretching the apex of the performance over both tracks. It would be interesting to discuss this album and the musical treatment presented by Kalash as part of the important solo oud albums, because they contain a new direction in focus and presentation.” –Ma3azef Magazine
