On the front lines, music plays a powerful role.

There’s a theater to fighting. Be it two young men swinging fists in a ring or thousands of people shooting at one another in the ruins of a city, there is an undeniable human drama that plays out. Maybe that’s why music is intrinsically linked to war — powerful drama needs a powerful soundtrack.

In Syria and Iraq, this human drama is once again playing out with a unique score, as various forces struggle to dislodge Islamic State fighters from their stubbornly held ground. Soran Qurbani is a Kurdish-Iranian journalist who’s been on the front lines of the war on ISIS almost a dozen times since late 2014. Over the years, he’s been compiling footage and interviews for a documentary about the music of this conflict. We talked with him... Read More