Shahed Mohseni Zonoozi has been making waves in the EDM sphere for a minute with his chill throwback progressive and world music-infused house and trance tracks, although he actually works in the classical and experimental spheres with his company, Intercontinental Concerts. This is presumably how he met Lucy Monciel, a prolific opera-style singer and songwriter herself, to team up on their new track, “Destiny.”
The collaboration for “Destiny,” according to Monciel and Zonoozi, had a goal of incorporating traditional Armenian musical instruments, specifically a wind instrument called the Duduk, with Monciel’s operatic vocals and modern electronic music. When listening to the track, it appears that’s exactly what they did.
“Destiny” opens with what sounds like an analog drum kit and a sort of jazzy beat. As the duduk comes in to begin the melody, so does the stronger electronic trance beat. A bit of the jazz syncopation remains, however, adding an interesting backbeat to the normally straight-on trance. When the track begins in earnest with a starburst synth so does the big room trance beat and the primary melodies, carried by Monciel and a classical piano. The duduk takes a bit of a backseat as the track gets going, but seems present underneath all the other layers.
It’s clear by these layers of sound created by Zonoozi and Monciel that the composition style of “Destiny” is classical, which is not surprise given the operatic nature of the vocals needing to be matched with the beat, but the track still does very much play like a trance track with an initial intro, a build, a main body, a central break and a climax. It must have taken a decent amount of time to put this track together and make all the parts fit, and will likely lend itself well to remixes if Zonoozi and Monciel want to go that direction.
“Destiny” is out now and streamable on Zonoozi’s Soundcloud page. To learn more about his Intercontinental Concerts project, visit InterContinentalConcerts.org.