Ravish Momin: The Business of Time

Clifford Allen

CD/DVD Reviewer since 2002

Clifford Allen wishes he could've shared a loft at 27 Cooper Square in 1966.

Recent articles (228 total)

Published: March 3, 2009

AAJ: It's interesting to think about having a record date and the thing seeming so perfectly gelled, yet to hear you say that you're still well in the middle and don't have anything close to a mastery, when the music itself seems so tight and clear.

RM: That's cool to hear—I don't mean that I don't have it together, but I mean it more in terms of process. The creative process is never-ending. Ten years from now, if I'm still doing Tarana and you ask me this question, it may have a completely different feel to it—it may be more sophisticated or evolved. It's evolved enough to function where we are now. But it may evolve in ways I can't even imagine. And that's what excites me—to go back full circle with electronics; they push me out of my comfort zone. I don't know, but I want to push myself, understand and challenge myself. Sure, I want to be judged by the electronica heavies, and it's intimidating but I'm not scared. I want to learn how to write more melody and harmony—all the things that are a challenge to me as a drummer. I'm coming from an unschooled background—I went to school for Civil Engineering, not music!

Again, it's all about experience and if I didn't have the practical chops, I couldn't put these tours together. You need a lot of daily management skills, and there's so much from waking up on time and managing the road directions to handling contracts and stage setup, riders, hospitality, not to mention playing your ass off when you get up on stage. Now it's second nature for me and I just do it. You need to have that naïve optimism—I can make a difference, I can be grassroots and I can get out there on some level and make a living doing it. If I didn't believe in that, what would be the point of doing this or anything else?

Selected Discography

Fulton Lights, The Way We Ride (Android Eats Records, 2008)
Ravish Momin's Trio Tarana, Miren (A Longing) (Clean Feed 2007)
Ravish Momin's Trio Tarana, Five Nights (Not Two, 2006)
Ravish Momin's Trio Tarana, Climbing the Banyan Tree (Clean Feed, 2004)
Kalaparusha and the Light, Morning Song (Delmark, 2004)
Kalaparusha and the Light, The Moment (Entropy, 2003)
Ravish Momin, Sound Dissolving Sound (Sachimay, 2000)