Unable to find an assessment of Toronto-based John Kameel Farah’s music that doesn’t use odiously vague terms like ‘cutting-edge’ and ‘genre-busting’, Wheel thought JKF might like to enlighten us in his own words. Classically trained, sonically obsessed and at a cultural crossroads, he reluctantly offered “postmodern... but after that.”
By Ted Niles
Is yours Intelligent Dance Music? IDM is a big kind of disaster of a name, and I think everyone who works in it hates it. But hearing all the major IDM guys was a major eye-opener for me. It made me realise I could take all these things I was discovering and reassemble and break them down.
Would you consider your music populist? No... But it’s not anti-populist either. Because of my worldview and my approach to the evolution of the Middle East and Europe, I have a very different perspective of how things evolved than what is prevalent – especially in the last decade. So there is an outreach aspect: wanting to synthesize, and, in a sense, wanting to represent.
Do you think that motivation would be there so much if what happened in the last ten years hadn’t happened? I thought the common conception of the Middle East was bad before 9/11, but now it’s a total fucking caricature. And while mine’s not Middle Eastern music, this is one of the counterpoints and it’s speaking with a proud and dignified voice. I’m using samples of Arabic percussion and rhythms derived from Arabic or Turkish classical music.
"I liken it to trying an olive for the first time. You want to spit it out but there's something about it that makes you want another. Discovering atonality was like that for me."
Describe your musical evolution. I started out in university as a piano performance major. Then I switched to performance and composition and got head-first into 20th century contemporary classical music. I discovered Schoenberg, which was a major brain-opener for me. Then I started thinking: imagine if you could improvise with all these new approaches to harmony and melody and rhythm.
I wanted to have some fluency in jazz and ended up playing on cruise ships for a year and a half, which was total hell. The approach to time between a classical musician and a jazz musician is a totally different universe. All these experiences were mind-opening but also painful transformations, because you’re trying to reconfigure your brain. I liken it to trying an olive for the first time. You want to spit it out but there’s something about it that makes you want another. Discovering atonality was like that for me.
The Montreal Mirror said of you, “his mission... is seeking out engaging new ground as his academically venerated resources gradually petrify.” Do you agree? I interpret that as referring to universities and the classical canon – the approach to which has become dull and unimaginative: ‘we’re going to do something wild and crazy! Bach... with a twist!’ But if you’re a creator, these are your tools so why not use them? It’s a way of calling your universe into existence.
What I love about the academic is the attention to detail. The “anti” reaction to that is the indie rock thing of being anti-detail. They’re trying to rebel against what they see as stale and constricting, but sometimes this doesn’t deliver on substance.
Do you see your enterprise as making complex ideas more accessible? It’s hard to tell how much is intentional and what’s accidental. In my music there’s an attention to ultra fine detail; the ornamentation becomes fluid and ends up representing both large and small things at the same time. For instance I have a thing with trills but for me it’s not frilly; the ornamentation is an expression, like a heart flutter. And that is the substance.
Describe what you call the Atonal Maqam. A certain way of improvising I have starts as a couple notes and it grows into a weird, ornamented, asymmetrical scale that’s also a giant chord. The whole harmonic series is a reflection of the way that reverberations unfold from one note. I call this the Atonal Maqam. A maqam is a Middle Eastern tone or scale – It’s like raga in Indian music. Of course it’s not really maqam and it’s not really atonal, but for me that represents it.
Who is your audience? It’s not specifically a free jazz, modern classical, electronic or Arabic music audience, but some people from those areas. I would describe it as a certain type of person, rather than a certain type of musical person. For example, I played a couple months ago in this Latvian Orthodox church where I sold a lot of CDs. Half the people that bought it were grandmothers—60,70, 80 years old—and the other half were rave kids. 
More about John including concert dates across the UK in July and August
Interview © 2010 Wheel Me Out. No part can be used for any purpose without prior consent. Please contact editorial@wheelmeout.com
