Born and raised in Kuwait, Taymour’s musical sensibilities are rooted within the Arabian desert, where he grew up. He began to explore instruments at the age of 13, and later his subsequent travels exposed him to cultures from Africa, Asia, and Europe, which allowed him to discover his multifaceted sound. Meanwhile, his apprenticeship under master trumpeters Theo Croker and Alex Han seems to have cemented his desire to create jazz that’s challenging and technical, and he manages this on his first release ‘Freecutter’, which comes with the unique spoken word poetry twist.
‘Freecutter’ has a complex sound driven from its spoken-word lyrical delivery, alongside its bustling musical environment composed of piano, bass, drums, trumpet and at times, abstracted vocal layers. The single’s melodic and harmonic structures are dense. Melodies come in the form of sudden bursts of uttered instrumental lines that seem to have been dropped there by mistake, but find their placement in the intricate harmonies.
With its technical sound, ‘Freecutter’ isn’t the most accessible, instead it is complex and yet still atmospheric and compelling. The song’s core elements of drums, piano, and trumpet are consistently at a rapid pace that compliments the song’s conceptual lyrics and flow.
Taymour’s singing on the song is done with a particular charisma to the delivery, in which he sounds like a fear mongering preacher as he recites,
“Freecutter says yo, hey, sup, and wut at the same time,
Moves in both directions at once at the same time.
Freecutter mourns your loss but kills at the same time,
Revealing the six paths of grief at the same time.”
The cryptic lyrics make the mysterious ‘Freecutter’ equally ambiguous and terrifying, which leaves the words as open ended and as free for interpretation as the music.
Taymour Khajah’s first release is a foray into a style of music that’s a rare find in the region, and with rich production and exhilarating performances, it shows massive potential.
Listen to the track here:
