L’ANTIDOTE

Can beauty save the world? This is the wager of Bijan Chemirani, Redi Hasa and Rami Khalifé, three virtuosos brought together to create L’Antidote, an instrumental repertoire of rare finesse that pits the healing power of music against the poisons of the present day.

Bijan Chemirani is a master of the Iranian zarb and Persian percussion and loves to immerse himself and his instruments in jazz as well as the whole width of the Mediterranean. Here, he combines his art of rhythm with Albanian cellist Redi Hasa – known for his contribution to the revival of traditional music in southern Italy, but also for his work with Maria Mazzotta, Ludovico Einaudi and Robert Plant – and Lebanese pianist Rami Khalife, who masterfully blurs the boundaries between classical and electro on the keys of his piano. Although their paths had already crossed, the real meeting took place on the cusp of the pandemic, in a studio in Puglia, near Lecce, when time seemed about to stand still. The three virtuosos came together again in autumn 2024, in the same magnificent location bathed in light, to record L’Antidote, an instrumental repertoire of rare finesse.

Space, air, time, silence… Marked by the beauty of an environment conducive to dreams and contemplation, the trio let themselves be penetrated by the essence of meditative music on chiaroscuro tracks with delicate Levantine melodies such as “The Orchard”, “Shadows of flowers on my wall”, “Rosée” or the haunting “Pomegranate”.  While purification and contemplation are good for finding peace, sometimes there’s nothing better than a good trance to free yourself from negative energies : in short, to sweat venom, you have to dance! The three musicians allow themselves the joy of uptempo on tracks such as “Dates, figs and nuts” and  “Na Na Na”, where the fever of electronic music flirts with Balkan jubilation.

Dancing, feeling pleasure, hope and despair, crying, laughing, healing… a range of emotions that runs through L’Antidote and links people living across cultures. With L’Antidote, the three musicians cultivate hope and beauty on a universal scale.