Mahsa Vahdat - Braids of innocence

Mahsa Vahdat and SKRUK: “Braids of innocence”

Harp: Ellen Bødtker

When the new album project with Mahsa Vahdat and SKRUK was about to be recorded in the summer of 2022, Mahsa proposed the title “Braids of innocence”. Little did she know then how explosive this title would come to be in light of the events in her home country of Iran just a few months later.

The roots of the title stem from an incident from Mahsa’s childhood, which one of the lyrics tells us about. She was 11 years old and about to visit her uncle, who had been imprisoned in Teheran for political activities. This was a few years after the Islamic revolution, and it had become compulsory for all females from ages 9 and up to wear a headdress. The same morning, Mahsa’s mother had made a cluster of braids in the girl’s thick hair. When they came to the prison and met her uncle, who was sitting behind a glass wall with some tens of other prisoners, the mother managed to surreptitiously show the uncle Mahsa’s braids, and for the imprisoned men the glimpse they had of the braids was like a ray of freedom. 

The Iranian musicians Mahsa Vahdat and Atabak Elyasi have worked on this project for three years for Mahsa and SKRUK and the harpist Ellen Bødtker. Mahsa has written the melodies, Atabak has written poems and arrangements and additional melodies for the choir, and the producer Erik Hillestad has rendered the poems into English.

Mahsa, SKRUK and the publisher, KKV, agreed this summer to use the exquisitely subtle title “Braids of innocence” for the album. Everyone saw it as somewhat unique, but also as an original and exciting source of curiosity. But that was before the 18th of September, when Mahsa Amini was murdered by the morality police in Teheran because her veil did not adequately cover her braids. This act ignited a rage in the hearts, and fed the yearning for freedom, of an entire generation of Iranian women. And braids became a symbol, a freedom flag for women around the globe. It also instantly made Mahsa Vahdat’s and SKRUK’s album a rallying manifesto, an explosive comment on the streaming news this autumn. In Mahsa’s words: “The project acquired a new dimension, as the events in my home country of Iran were commented on so directly by both the title and the content of the songs we had recorded. The performance of my art has always been driven by the constant ambition to use my expressive power to raise awareness and kindle hope against suffering and injustice, so for me this project has been extra important”.

SKRUK and Mahsa have now also produced a short video clip showing members of the choir cutting their hair in protest and solidarity, and this has now been shared and spread in huge numbers around the world. The album will be released on the 2nd of December, and on the 3rd of December KKV will hold a release concert in Kulturkirken Jakob in Oslo.

“Braids of innocence” also features several other songs that are highly relevant for the world’s first revolution led by women, the struggle for freedom being fought in Iran: “The tyrants will lose”, “I came free”, “Wakeful night”, and the opening track, “A thousand birds will chant your song”, are all poems and melodies that cut right to the heart of this issue. Two other poets are also featured on the record: the classic Rumi and the contemporary poet Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari.

Mahsa and Atabak call themselves “liberal traditionalists”, and the music on the album is thus a special genre. SKRUK’s conductor, Per Oddvar Hildre describes it as tonal paintings. Ellen Bødtker’s harp is the centre point for the soloist’s and choir’s sound palette, where Atabak’s harmonies break with most rules for choral arrangements. The overriding effect is both unusual and exquisitely beautiful. It is also a torch lighting the way for how the Western countries should address the on-going protests and the Iranian regime’s abusive treatment of its own people. 

The album was recorded in Volda Church in August 2022 by Alf Christian Hvidsteen.