Simin Tander’s The Wind is a multilingual, multi-modal exploration of jazz vocalism at the intersection of European jazz and world music. Built on a quartet foundation of Tander (voice), Björn Meyer (electric bass), Samuel Rohrer (drums and electronics), and Harpreet Bansal (violin), the album fuses Afghan poetry, European art song, folk tradition, and ambient jazz improvisation. The twelve-song project is a tightly coherent experience of world jazz with thoroughly textural songs that honors world grooves, space, clarity, and deep emotional engagement.
“Meena” opens our experience with an arrangement of a 17th-century Pashto poem by Rahman Baba. Bansal’s violin introduces the track with a breathy, sul tasto gesture, emulating wind carrying a middle eastern melody. Rohrer’s frame drum work is dry and textural, functioning more like a sculpted rhythmic contour than a metronomic pulse. Tander’s vocal phrasing is expressive and improvisational. Her pitch remains melodically anchored as this track establishes the record’s architectural strategy of thematic evolution through text, and exotic harmonic motion.
A Tander original, “Woken Dream” shifts between compound meters and sustained pad-like harmonies. Meyer’s electric bass operates with a wide dynamic range, acting as a drone and a voice-leading instrument. Tander expands into extended vocal techniques. Rohrer’s drumming parallels intervallic harmony and microtonal slides. The layered vocal parts bring in polyphonic overdubs. The rhythmic interplay between Rohrer’s cymbal accents and Bansal’s dynamic gestures provides a polyrhythmic undercurrent that breaks up the ambient surface.
“I Te Vurria Vasà” is the quartets interpretation of the Neapolitan standard that minimizes harmonic accompaniment in favor of linear counterpoint between voice and violin. The arrangement intentionally reduces rhythmic drive, allowing breath and phrasing to dictate form. Bansal’s violin fills the harmonic gaps with modal flourishes that nod to South Asian and Mediterranean idioms. It’s a strong example of Tander’s vocal power as she leaves space without sacrificing clarity.
“The Wind Within Her” is an original composition with strong motivic development, this track is a compressed statement of the album’s core ethos: strength through subtlety. The ensemble is centered on Meyer’s bass figure, which unfolds against Rohrer’s moody percussion. Tander delivers eerie phrases, increasing in contour complexity while maintaining dynamic restraint. The sound design here favors soft transients and filtered upper mids, evident in the spectral balance of the vocal mix.
“Janana Sta Yama” returning to the Pashto repertoire, with layers of bass and drums providing a contemporary world groove for the folk melody’s contour. Rohrer uses asymmetrical cymbal hits and subtle rim clicks to establish the meter, allowing Bansal and Meyer to stretch the harmonic rhythm. Tander leans into modal ornamentation with Bansal as her melisma, while free, is deliberately shaped and rhythmically coordinated with the ensemble. This track exemplifies the group’s ensemble listening and responsiveness.
“Ay Linda Amiga” is a brief exploration of a 16th-century Spanish love song in its historically authentic language and form, but with contemporary ornimentation. Meyer’s bass is mixed close and dry, reinforcing the rhythmic structure with a vocal-like timbre. Tander chooses minimal vibrato, maintaining historical vocal practice, but the mix positions her in a modern acoustic space. The vocal harmony and counterpoint create the effect of a dialogue between past and present, rendered without overt embellishment.
“Nursling of The Sky” was adapted from Shelley’s “The Cloud,” this track contrasts spoken-word delivery with kinetic rhythmic bass figure and strummed violin. Tander’s voice is close-miked, with a dry EQ curve that emphasizes intelligibility. Rohrer’s electronics include granular synthesis and sidechain compression, introducing a dance-like pulse beneath the literary recitation. The tension here is structural, the lyrics imply stillness while the beat insists on propulsion. Strong contrast, tightly controlled.
“Jongarra” opens with Meyer’s bass setting the mood. Musically it functions as a midpoint reflection. It returns to a layered palette: violin counter melodies, light percussion, and dynamic vocal intervals. Structurally, this piece alternates open-ended rubato with metric passages. It reads like a through-composed form with improvisational windows, balancing intention and freedom.
“I Te Vurria Vasà Glow” features Meyer’s electronics and textures creating a reprise of the predictable. This miniature exploration deconstructs the earlier Neapolitan tune. It’s effective, particularly as a contrast to the clarity of the first version. Excellent sound design and risk-taking in structure.
One of the album’s most rhythm-forward pieces, “Side Caught” reflects a more conventional modern world groove. Rohrer’s hybrid kit/electronics setup carries the track, while Meyer’s bass groove locks into a slightly swung 6/8 feel. Tander and Bansal play off each other with conversational phrasing, often finishing each other’s lines. The production gives each player spatial identity, each instrument has it own panning and dry reverb provide clarity without overprocessing.
This reworking of the Norwegian hymn “Jesus, Gjør Meg Stille” begins with a modal harmonic palette and a restrained effects. Tander’s vocal performance expands gradually, introducing vibrato, overtone-rich harmonics, and eventually yodel-inspired keening. The form is linear but narrative, with clear arc development. Rohrer’s cymbal swells and Bansal’s harmonic tension mirror the vocal ascent. It’s the album’s emotional apex—raw, committed, and technically nuanced.
“Outro – The Wind,” the final track functions as a thematic and sonic summation. Tander’s vocal control of micro-tonal accents is delivered with expressive gestures, allowing timbre and phrasing to carry communicative weight. The ambient treatment on her voice, very little decay, soft high-shelf EQ, creates a sense of spatial dispersal. The metaphorical gesture is clear, but its execution is grounded in precise production choices.
The Wind is a emotionally intelligent album that rewards close listening. For world music fans, the record offers a study in restraint, phrasing, and multi-language articulation. It demonstrates how texture, tone, and form can be used to create a dynamic listening arc in spatial design and mix transparency. Simin Tander has delivered a work of high artistic integrity and executional rigor. The Wind doesn’t just float; it carries. That’s the short of it!
