In ancient Persian (Iranian) calendar, each month used to have thirty mansions. Ancient Iranians believed that moon would reside in one of mansions each night. They used to have a unique name each. 26th of them was named Kahtmayan. Kahtmayan is also the only name that was not altered after invasion of Arabs to Iran in 14 centuries ago. Brought together by Homayoon Majd Zadeh in Tehran in January 2003, Kahtmayan is the first Iranian Thrash Metal band. Although the band was formed in 2003, most of the music which gathered later in their first live album Virtual Existence in 2004, where written by Homayoon Majd Zadeh (guitars) before that time. Kahtmayan started as Homayoon Majd Zadeh (guitar), Ardavan Anzabipour (Bass), Khaled Sanad Zadeh (Drums), and Ali Khodadoost (Keyboard). With this lineup, Kahtmayan played several live shows in 2003 and 2004 but in mid-winter 2004 Sanad Zadeh was replaced by Vanik Vartanian and the band started to step into the studio. The first official concert of Kahtmayan "Choose Your Progress" was successfully performed in Farabi Hall in Tehran in 2003. "Choose Your Progress" was followed by another live performance called "Virtual Existence". Afterwards in 2005, band's keyboardist Khodadoost was replaced by another guitarist Ali Azahri--to reach more thrash sound for their first studio album Exir. After Exir, Vartanian left Iran and Arash Pajand Moghaddam took his place as a new drummer. After all these substitutions, recording of Exir began and eventually it was published as first official Iranian instrumental Thrash Metal album by Ava Khorshid in 2005. Some of Kahtmayan melodies (from live performances) were also selected by a group of English filmmakers to be added as soundtrack of their documentary film about Iran. Kahtmayan initially started to assimilate the metal sound with Persian (Iranian) folk music. For this, early Kahtmayan can be well categorized as a Progressive Metal band for their live performances but 2005's Exir can not be classified as a Progressive album anymore for it is purely thrash. Studio version of Virtual Existence is said to be the band's next album--this time with no keyboards. Kahtmayan is also known as an instrumental metal band but, as stated by Homayoon Majd Zadeh earlier, the band is going to broaden its musical style by adding vocalist to its lineup. ~ Pouya Partovi