BIOGRAPHY
Since his young age Arashkha has developed an interest in two distinct musical fields: the sounds of industrial and urban environment and the traditional melodies and sounds of the world.
He constantly wonders about the growing urbanity and its sociological and philosophical effects, about the absorption of multiple cultures, and has marveled since childhood at these ancestral and timeless melodies.
In the same way Gustav Jung supposes archetypal and universal forms, it seems that there are similar melodies which can belong to very distant physical territories but which exist above all in an interior and psychic territory common to humanity. This territory of exploration is both internal and external.
Based in Reunion island since 2011, the Franco-Iranian artist, Arash Khalatbari (ARASHKHA) composer, producer and performer was born in Iran. When he arrived in France at the age of 14, he began his musical career with the band Vox Populi - a mix of ethnic and "industrial" music - and released 3 LPs and several compilations under the label VISA in the 1980's.
After having creating music for theater around the mythologies of the world with the company
Tour de Babel, he founded with Dierdre Dubois and Mehdi Haddab in 1994 the famous TRIO EKOVA (signed by SONY in France, SIX DEGREES/USA). Crowned by the FAIR and Ile de France selection of the Printemps de Bourges, EKOVA multiplied the tours with about fifty dates a year.
In 2000 they did the opening of THE CURE tour in France. They also created the music of the ballet "Noor" by Redha choreographer.
Alongside the EKOVA adventure, ARASHKHA continued to nourish his interest for encounters and exchanges by collaborating on numerous projects of the Parisian world scene (Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, African, Comorian, Indian with Susheela Raman, Jewish music with Sara Alexander).
"In la Chapelle", his first solo album, released in 2010 by Iris/Harmoniamundi label, bears the name of the Parisian district where he lived. "Isis Island", his second album released in 2013, was already much more imbued with the rhythms of the Indian Ocean.
He also pursued a quest for meaning in philosophy and sociology. Having become an architect, he worked several years on the rehabilitation of poor neighborhoods in social disorder, in the suburbs of Paris and conducted a university research on the theme "Mysticism, space and territory".
In 2019, he obtained his doctorate in urban sociology on "the interactions between individual behavior and habitat" and worked for social action in the neighborhoods of Reunion Island.
The musician-researcher is indeed convinced of the link between music and territory whether it is the urban universe of electro or melodies transcending borders and eras.
After a trip to Japan in December 2018 and his meeting with his musician friend Kiyoshi Maejima, he recorded an electro-Japanese album in 2021.
Then he produced a film-concert related to the Asian mythology of a three-legged crow, collaborating with Korean and Chinese musicians under the project named ARASHKARASU.
In 2023, he presents his new afro-oriental-groove live around the music of the Mozambique Channel and the Indian Ocean.