Such a great title. Makes me listen closer

Easy Life

Musician and composer Sahba Sizdahkhani serves as a unique crossroad of East meets West. Influenced heavily by both 1960’s spiritual free-jazz and Persian Classical Music, he channels the fire-energy and longing for connectivity these two stormy histories represent. At age 12, his self-proclaimed “aha moment” occurred while listening to The John Coltrane Quartet for the very first time. He was hooked and immediately began studies on jazz drum set and classical snare drum.
     As the years passed, however, his ferocious love of jazz and improvisation would open pathways and pointers to his native roots of Persian Classical Music, and eventually, he would begin formal studies on the Iranian santur with master santur player Faraz Minooei.
     Sahba has completed two separate Bachelor of Arts degrees: one at Berklee College of Music, in Jazz performance, and the other at The University of Maryland, in Art History & Archeology. He worked in Paris for several years in textile design but ultimately moved back to New York city to further pursue jazz drumming.
He has composed film scores for Chelsea Winstanley (JoJo Rabbit), Whalerock Industries, maverick avant filmmaker Paul Clipson, as well as a live score performance for the Cinema 16 series in the legendary tunnel underneath the Manhattan Bridge.
Additionally, Sahba has recently recorded with Michael Morley(Dead C) and currently has running musical collaborations with Derek Monypeny, Rob Magill, and Zachary James Watkins + Ross Peacock.
He has shared live bills with a vastly diverse class of artists including Laraaji, C spencer Yeh, Susan Alcorn, Henry Kaiser, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Sunwatchers, Wizard Apprentice, Talibam!, Plankton Wat, Peter Brötzmann, and Don Dietrich (Barbetomagus). He has performed at The White House, Park Avenue Armory, Kennedy Center for the Arts, Basilica Hudson’s 24 Hour Drone Festival, WFMU live performance, “Fire Over Heaven” at Outpost Artist Resources, The Embassy of France, VOA studios, and Garden of Memory Festival at The Chapel of the Chimes.
Sahba’s hazy, atmospheric solo performances with 104-string santour and drums have been described as “a dispatch from antiquity.” And WIRE magazine recently stated “Sahba Sizdahkhani starts playing [his] instrument as if  he's pleading for his life. His playing is breathtaking. . .”
     This particular work, “GANJ,” which translates to “treasure” in Farsi, documents the magical first meeting between a musician and a new instrument. It is the first ever raw, unrefined recording of Sahba on solo santur as opposed to drum set. It was recorded in solitude during the Winter Solstice of 2019 without any prior training or study whatsoever on the mystical 102-stringed trapezoid dulcimer. The consequent emphasis due to lack of any technical skill,  was pure sonics, overtones, resonances, and an homage to minimalist composers such as Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and early Miles Davis. Days after completing this work, Sahba rushed to seek out formal studies of the Persian Classical Radif with his current teacher, Faraz Minooei.

Sahba Sizdahkhani- Ganj Pt. 4 - from Ganj tape on Cassauna

Preview track from Antologia de Música Atípica Portuguesa Vol.3" Canto Devocionário

More info and preview at www.discrepant.net

Antologia de Música Atípica Portuguesa Vol3

João Pais Filipe - V (from Antologia de Música Atípica Portuguesa Vol.3)

This is a mixed down composite version of Browser Music 1. 

The individual parts and instructions for playing them are as follows:

Open each link below in its own web browser tab or window and press play on each. 

Part One: youtu.be/O7K1iG0TsHo
Part Two: youtu.be/wIK1krtrErM
Part Three: youtu.be/8GNHtoh3Q58
Part Four: youtu.be/Pv_X8e8cgJs 

The four parts are meant to play at the same time but don’t have to start together. You can stop / re-start individual parts and change their respective volumes as you wish. Like the components of a mobile sculpture, each part can be considered on its own or in any combination. 

This is music without development, where nothing much happens (or rather: the happening is evenly distributed throughout). This is also quiet music – perfect for playing in the background on your web browser while you are doing something else on your computer. You can even listen to other music / watch other videos / make Zoom calls, etc. while playing Browser Music in the background.

Support here: https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/track/browser-music-1

Bandcamp

Browser Music 1

Another Ok Anecdote (Homage to H.G.)

Little Annie and @night_foundation live improv set for the Inertia record release party at Technique Records; Miami, FL 03.25.23

Little Annie meets Night Foundation LIVE @Technique Records 03.25.23

Available via Imprec.com

Mo H. Zareei (mHz) returns to Imprec/Cassauna with Proof Of Identity, an album of pulsating, pattern-based electronic pieces that evolve in ways reminiscent of Steve Reich's early work or Philip Glass' Music In 12 Parts. With Proof Of Identity, Zareei confronts issues surrounding identity and authorship in composition specifically when created by non-Western musicians. He simultaneously tackles orientalism and the normative take on identity politics. 

Artist's Statement: 

More than a decade ago, I made a piece of beat-based electronic music and titled it "Middle Eastern IDM" for a course assignment. After listening to it in class, my professor asked what was Middle Eastern about it. It was only a year after I had left Iran to study in the US, and I didn't know that I could say "I am. I made the piece". So I went back and superimposed a sample of Egyptian protest chants on top of the piece, to make it "sufficiently Middle Eastern".  

What prejudiced conservatism and performative liberalism share is gatekeeping practices that box one in a preconceived state of otherness. While the former overtly regards that otherness as inferior, the latter exoticises it through patronising paternalism. To me, it is especially troubling when exclusionary practices are driven by some form of overzealous "diversity and inclusion" agenda. If you don't fit the diversity box they've made for you, too bad. It's your fault for being "insufficiently diverse". "Poor thing, you've been colonised!", they tell you, as they claim ownership over a collection of frequencies and rhythms. When you look at who gets to decide if something's indigenous enough, you see how decolonisation itself has been colonised.

When you listen to this piece, I'm very happy for you to keep in mind that it was made by someone from Iran. But I might need to clarify that this piece has nothing to do with sufism and the whirling dervishes, the interweaving patterns of the Persian carpet, the poetry of Rumi, or Islamic architecture. And if you hear those moments of "non-western" sonorities, that is because I have constructed this piece from samples of a piece of Iranian traditional music – an overplayed piece that was all over TV and radio while I was growing up Iran, one that I never found particularly inspiring or interesting. Here, I have tried to make it more interesting by completely taking it apart and reconstructing it through my personal compositional techniques, aesthetic preferences, and a wide range of musical influences. So in short, while this piece might not sound like your archetypical Iranian music, I assure you that it is Iranian enough. 

bio

Mo H. Zareei aka mHz is an Iranian electronic musician, sound artist, and researcher, based in Wellington, New Zealand. Using custom-built software and hardware, his experiments with sound cover a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. Regardless of the medium, Zareei’s work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles. Over the course of his PhD, he developed a portfolio of works focused on the intersections of sound art and Brutalism. 

Zareei has presented his work at international venues and festivals such as ISEA (Montreal/Vancouver/Dubai), SETxCTM festival (Tehran), NIME (London), Modern Body Festival (The Hague), ICAD (New York), and NZ Festival (Wellington), to name a few. His installation “Rasping Music" was the recipient of the 1st prize for Sound Art at the last iteration of the international Sonic Arts Award in 2015 (Italy).

Under the moniker mHz, Zareei’s electronic music projects have been published via LINE (US), Important Records (US), leerraum (CH), and Kasuga Records (DE).

mHz - Proof Of Identity (Part I) - Tape

from KR083:  MARTINA BERTONI - Music For Empty Flats. LP / DL / Tape out january 29th 2021

Music For Empty Flats

MARTINA BERTONI - Music For Empty Flats

Presented as a re-creation of two live sets performed in 2019, Patrick Gallagher deftly melds field recordings, a "fairly standard" synthesis toolkit, and prepared electric guitar into two peerless electro-acoustic compositions comprising his debut album for ENXPL (enmossed x psychic liberation).

As the album's title implies, "Set In the Bardo" embraces indeterminacy in all respects. An extreme range of timbrel variety and complexity is employed, from pure sine waves to nearly-incomprehensible sonic blasts. With a formal education in mathematics, Gallagher's astute arrangements modulate between smooth glissandos and abrupt interruptions, reflecting the compositional process used: salvaging hitherto-abandoned recordings and live snippets from the artist's archive. Post-processing was eschewed on the album in order to preserve the improvisatory nature of a live performance, giving an organic quality to the album which is often lost in academic compositions.

While "Set In the Bardo" was created in pre-pandemic times, it also functions well at this particular juncture of history. We have been 'set in the bardo' ourselves, and Gallagher has made an engrossing set of pieces - encapsulating and unfolding sonic uncertainties as we venture through trying times. Well worth many listening sessions; high volume and high fidelity during playback are recommended.

---

Patrick Gallagher is a sound artist and composer currently residing in Philadelphia, PA. He cut his teeth in the North Carolina avant-garde underground, perfecting his composition processes with numerous live performances as well as releases on Tone Log, Hot Releases, Refulgent Sepulchre, and other independent labels. 

releases January 29, 2021

mastering :: Jack Callahan

cover artwork :: Autumn Casey

design ++ layout :: Robin JM Vanderheyden

a portion of Side A was recorded live at Rhizome (Washington, DC) by Steve Sanford

all proceeds to The Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (Philadelphia, PA) :: www.yasproject.com

Browser Music 1

Andrew Pekler

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