Tegh & Adel Poursamadi are a duo from Tehran, Iran, who are bringing a new spin to electroacoustic and experimental music. Sadly, only one track is available for the moment, but it shows how the duo meld string instruments and electronic soundscapes together seamlessly.
Shaytoon Records has released a compilation introducing some of the finest minimal techno coming out of Iran these days. The label is based in New York, but the bands come, more or less, from the motherland, though America’s Persian diaspora is well-represented. The beats are rather icy and cold, reminding me of acts like Front Line Assembly and Delerium, though bearing a more mellow hue. These acts are definitely worth exploring.
Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian is a Kurdish tanburist who hails from Kermanshah, in the Iranian region of Horaman. His playing reminds me of a lot of the instrumental music coming out of the Sahel, blended, naturally, with Kurdish rhythms and adding a psychedelic haze to the music. Though I’m not keen on paying €1,000 for a download, the cassette version is certainly worth a purchase. It would probably do Radio Khiyaban, the magnificent label who released Heydarian’s work, to consider making these recordings available for upload once the cassettes go out of print.
We have to wait eight more days to hear the complete work, but given the two tracks Maryam Sirvan has made available, this will be worth the wait. There were two artists which came to mind while listening to the tracks over and over – Tim Buckley at his most experimental, and ‘Dogs Blood Rising‘-era Current 93. This should be seen as an electroacoustic album, and would compare very favorably to those artists like Bernard Parmegiani who could depict a hellish landscape in what some wrongly think is an academic medium. This album is truly that weird, and it sounds…
I feel a bit silly admitting this, but for some reason, I thought I had Soundtrack To The Blind Owl previously. Iran’s foremost dark ambient composer Xerxes The Dark has been active for many years now, and is part of a pretty amazing scene developing in one of the least likely places on Earth. Then again, with the Internet, I am expecting mind-blowing post-Industrial music to pop out of Togo or Burkina Faso eventually. To the music. There are six tracks of ominous drone on this album. This isn’t a typical drone or ambient album, however. Xerxes expertly mixes in…
There seems to be an explosion of indie bands popping up around Iran, and this one seems to be one of the most interesting of the lot. Crows In The Rain hail from Tehran and produce a very melancholic form of post-rock mixed with neo-classical influences. Solid material.