Tonight we have an interview with the great Iranian electronic musician Ata Ebtekar aka Sote, who we are extremely lucky in Sydney to have coming in a few weeks to play at Soft Centre. A few final release tickets are still available…
LISTEN AGAIN to a fascinating interview and glorious best electronic + acoustic sounds. Podcast here, stream on demand @ FBi.
Tool – Chocolate Chip Trip [RCA Records]
Well, it’s been 13 long years since their last album, but Tool have just dropped Fear Inoculum on a not-entirely-unsuspecting public, and it seems like a lot of people in my social feeds were extremely excited. I do like their brand of prog metal, for what it’s worth, but the stuff I like the most is when they sound the least like themselves – e.g. this track, in their traditional 7/8 but mostly based around a squelchy synth line and Danny Carey’s crazy drumming. The digital versions of the album feature a few more interstitial tracks which help break up the male angst…
Sote – Electric Deaf [Warp]
…interview with Ata Ebtekar with music under interview:
Ata Ebtekar and The Iranian Orchestra For New Music – Tonus {excerpt} [Sub Rosa]
Sote – Lacuna {excerpt} [Record Label Records]
Sote – Hardcore Sounds From Tehran Side A {excerpt} [Opal Tapes]
Sote – Brass Tacks [Diagonal Records/Bandcamp]
…second part of interview with Ata Ebtekar…
Sote – Pipe Dreams [Diagonal Records/Bandcamp]
It’s very exciting indeed that Ata Ebtekar aka Sote is going to be playing at Soft Centre in Casula, in Sydney’s Western Suburbs, on the 14th of September. I first discovered his music with the incredible Electric Deaf EP released on Warp in 2002. This was followed by some more beats on Dielectric, and later the great Wake Up 12” which I do believe I played a few times on this show in 2007, but already with 2006’s Dastgaah he was exploring ways to integrate traditional and classical Persian music into the electronic world. Both were released by Record Label Records, a US label that put out a number of his albums.
I talked to Ata about his adaptations of pioneering Iranian classical & electronic composer Alireza Mashayekhi, about idm and hardcore and formulaic electronic music, and about his approach to classical/traditional Persian music, a thread which has gone through his work for over a decade, and is particularly brilliantly rendered on 2017’s Sacred Horror In Design for Opal Tapes, and this year’s Parallel Persia. It was great to hear him talk about the collaborative process of working with the highly trained Iranian musicians Arash Bolouri (on santour + extended technique, vocals and tombak) and Pouya Damadi (tar + extended technique and vocals) on the new release.
Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy – B’aj بعاج [Whities]
Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy – Zawaj زواج [Whities]
New on the ever-evolving UK label Whities is the second album in which German trio Carl Gari collaborate with French-based Egyptian poet & singer Abdullah Miniawy. It’s an extraordinary work entitled The Act of Falling from the 8th Floor. The centrepiece is the first track I played tonight, “B’aj بعاج”, in which Miniawy narrates a poem told from the point of view of a man who has jumped from the 8th floor, and describes the activities on the balconies as he falls – a dark reflection of modern Egyptian society with a gorgeous bass-heavy soundscape of an accompaniment.
Mark Pritchard – In My Heart [Warp]
I’m thankful that UK electronic legend Mark Pritchard got in touch this week to let me know he’s releasing monthly tracks online under the umbrella of MP Productions. I first got to know his work with Tom Middleton doing ambient electronica as Global Communication, but there was also techno as Reload, breaks of various sorts as Link, and drum’n’bass as Chaos & Julia Set, among many other things. For the last few years he’s settled down into releasing everything under his birth name, which means that MP Productions can be anything at all each time – and there’s a massive amount of stuff in his archive. There’s also another full album coming of somewhat less dancefloor-oriented music, in the vein of Under The Sun (on which I played a bit of cello…)
Quench – Biva Vlance [Touched/Roel Funcken Bandcamp]
Roel Funcken has continued faithfully making idm after his brother Don decided to leave the music industry a number of years back. For ages they were the great “core idm” act as Funckarma, but actually their earliest release was as Quench, and it’s to that moniker which Roel returns from this new EP on UK label Touched. A plethora of idm sounds, from this track’s drill’n’bass to acid and melodic electronica, classic-sounding stuff beautifully produced.
Wytchings – Neptune [Urban Cowboy Records]
From Western Sydney comes Wytchings, the solo project of Jenny Trinh, who’s part of the New Age Noise collective working out of ICE in Parramatta. On this cool new EP, Trinh explores watery themes through electronic loops, field recordings and film samples.
Ana da Silva & Phew – Bom Tempo [Shouting Out Loud!]
Ana da Silva & Phew – The fear song [Shouting Out Loud!]
Two very creative women with big histories work together here – both Ana da Silva (of The Raincoats) and Phew (aka Hiromi Moritani, of Aunt Sally, collaborator with Can, Neubauten, Anton Fier and many others) have foundations in punk and postpunk, and together they create amazing industrial soundscapes, some rhythmic, some more droney, with some whispered, muttered and sung vocals. Often Moritani attempts to speak Portuguese and da Silva tries to speak Japanese, which intentionally adds to the disorienting nature of the sounds. I missed this release in 2018 and I’m very glad to have found it now.
Ben Carey – Peaks (excerpt) [Hospital Hill]
Sydney musician Ben Carey is an accomplished saxophonist, but he’s also a big fan of modular synthesis (and laptop production), and he has a new release coming out on Hospital Hill soon – this is an excerpt. The burbling synth sounds and quasi rhythms suggest it’ll be awesome! Ben is performing as part of Surfacing Series 2, happening at Freda’s in Chippendale on Saturday the 28th of September. Check the link for the full great lineup.
haddocks’ eyes – hey wow said dylan [haddocks’ eyes Bandcamp]
haddocks’ eyes – shrinkage [haddocks’ eyes Bandcamp]
Benjow aka haddocks’ eyes has been playing his very idiosyncratic sounds around Adelaide and now Sydney for some years. He frequently updates his Bandcamp with new music, which can easily be anything from delicate indie songs to krautrocky drones, glitchy pop songs or abrasive drum machine outings. The drum machine noise piece here is from a new EP called breaking your head, but the second number is a beautifully heartfelt song which he’s unearthed from a hard drive, probably from 2000.
D.C. Cross – Nordlin, By Chance [Darren Cross Bandcamp]
D.C. Cross – Drugged Up Madonna [Darren Cross Bandcamp]
Darren Cross is perhaps best known as one third of beloved Sydney guitar + electronic band Gerling. but his main outlet for some years has been the dark folk duo Jep and Dep with Jessica Cassar. His new album, however, is a collection of solo acoustic guitar works called Ecstatic Racquet, although that’s misleading because delays and reverbs and different recording styles make for a rather varied album, at times drawing on clear touchstones such as the fingerstyle guitar of John Fahey or the close-mic’d emotiveness of Nick Drake, but at other times evoking windswept shoegaze and ambient. Impressive work.
Listen again — ~200MB
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