I've found that where traditional music meets the now and hybridises, new creations and exciting new forms can flower - such is this remarkable release by Sote. Sote is Iranian electronic music composer Ata Ebtekar. To get an idea of where he's at creatively, an interesting quote finishes of his profile at www.sotesound.com .
"Ata 'Sote' Ebtekar believes that music is a cultural habit of sound and anti-sound (silence). Therefore, he generates music without a specific culture, which he believes to be "the other sound."
The cover features bombs and missiles heading groundward, while an angelic horse from an ancient, more mythical time, flys/trots across a background of ancient Persian texts - poems? And those texts, have a closer look at how they are formed - their structure is quite...technical?
Am I about to hear tradition napalmed by technology, violence to force bias reappraisal through brutalising the form? Or, is Sote simply bringing another layer of human experience into being through his music?
Technicalities of each song are elaborated within the sleeve via a breakdown. The information features each songs method of synthesis, dastgah & avaz (Persian modes), instruments, extended technique and electronic source. This information offers a whole bunch of material to inform and explore/investigate - or ignore, and go straight to the music.
Six songs follow that truly excite me, moving between subtlety and bold assertion, listen to Plural for a great example of what I mean. What starts as a quite folk inflected, contemplative introduction on setar then develops into a burst of what resembles a Kurdish Sufic daf ensemble on ice - kinda messing with the oneness unity of such ritual. The sound design on this track is awesome and features some really epic droning echo sonorities. Within this percussive earthquaking, santour briefly sing as it's intensity builds and builds into flurries of sound akin to a bellowing bull prior to slaughter. Really fucking awesome yeah. It stops, leaving you floating in one of those cavernous echoes, slowly decaying into silence.
Similar to Plural is Boghze Esfahan, where a poignant introduction on Setar then becomes an enfolding soundscape of stuttering synthesis and santour. Suspense-filled orchestra like sound rise and fall through chiming sonorities. Extended technique santour sonorities scrape, thud and catapult your ears into a completely strange and seductive soundworld. It ends once more with the measured, silence accented setar.
Holy Error begins as a slow heartbeat pulse, sounding like treated tombak in a cave, before it segues into an interloping layer of cyclic horror house door-creak synthesis, cranking into the sound-field. The santour's sonic form shifts from the familiar to not so as it is subsumed in an ordered and brief cacophony. I'm reminded that once upon a time Sote's creative peregrinations took him through techno for awhile - there's some really sharp rhythmic intricacies to this particular track. Holy Error reminds me a little of some of Murcof's earlier works on the Leaf label.
The opening track, Flux of Sorrow, as its title suggests, finds waves of melancholic santour and synthesis rising and falling. I initially thought of the rise of a tsunami on the surface of the sea. Then I was out in a slowly rolling ocean as a mass of tiny birds streamed and scattered into the horizon. Birds then became whale. This song introduces an oft repeated musical pattern between familiar and not so familiar - this song particularly is a gentler urging into new realms of musical form.
Sacred Horror In Design has formality and structure and is equally unknown - as suggested in the quote above. I believe its apt to describe it as truly psychedelic, a beautifully deranged reality - and at times, well...a welcome horror. It is incredibly rewarding and, I believe, a crucial development in Iranian music, building upon Sotes earlier releases via the Belgian Sub Rosa label.
Am I about to hear tradition napalmed by technology, violence to force bias reappraisal through brutalising the form? Or, is Sote simply bringing another layer of human experience into being through his music?
Technicalities of each song are elaborated within the sleeve via a breakdown. The information features each songs method of synthesis, dastgah & avaz (Persian modes), instruments, extended technique and electronic source. This information offers a whole bunch of material to inform and explore/investigate - or ignore, and go straight to the music.
Six songs follow that truly excite me, moving between subtlety and bold assertion, listen to Plural for a great example of what I mean. What starts as a quite folk inflected, contemplative introduction on setar then develops into a burst of what resembles a Kurdish Sufic daf ensemble on ice - kinda messing with the oneness unity of such ritual. The sound design on this track is awesome and features some really epic droning echo sonorities. Within this percussive earthquaking, santour briefly sing as it's intensity builds and builds into flurries of sound akin to a bellowing bull prior to slaughter. Really fucking awesome yeah. It stops, leaving you floating in one of those cavernous echoes, slowly decaying into silence.
Similar to Plural is Boghze Esfahan, where a poignant introduction on Setar then becomes an enfolding soundscape of stuttering synthesis and santour. Suspense-filled orchestra like sound rise and fall through chiming sonorities. Extended technique santour sonorities scrape, thud and catapult your ears into a completely strange and seductive soundworld. It ends once more with the measured, silence accented setar.
Holy Error begins as a slow heartbeat pulse, sounding like treated tombak in a cave, before it segues into an interloping layer of cyclic horror house door-creak synthesis, cranking into the sound-field. The santour's sonic form shifts from the familiar to not so as it is subsumed in an ordered and brief cacophony. I'm reminded that once upon a time Sote's creative peregrinations took him through techno for awhile - there's some really sharp rhythmic intricacies to this particular track. Holy Error reminds me a little of some of Murcof's earlier works on the Leaf label.
The opening track, Flux of Sorrow, as its title suggests, finds waves of melancholic santour and synthesis rising and falling. I initially thought of the rise of a tsunami on the surface of the sea. Then I was out in a slowly rolling ocean as a mass of tiny birds streamed and scattered into the horizon. Birds then became whale. This song introduces an oft repeated musical pattern between familiar and not so familiar - this song particularly is a gentler urging into new realms of musical form.
Sacred Horror In Design has formality and structure and is equally unknown - as suggested in the quote above. I believe its apt to describe it as truly psychedelic, a beautifully deranged reality - and at times, well...a welcome horror. It is incredibly rewarding and, I believe, a crucial development in Iranian music, building upon Sotes earlier releases via the Belgian Sub Rosa label.
Hi Perry - a bit too discordent for my liking. Although I think I'm not totally mainstream in reality I probably am and listening to this proves it. Thanks for sharing it... Steve
ReplyDeleteSteve...lovely to hear from you! Music and art are deeply personal relationships. The fact you took the time to listen speaks volumes. Mainstream shmainstream! In an interview in the October edition of Wire magazine Sote mentioned Iranian audiences, I'll quote it for you;
Delete"Sometimes they don't even like the music, but they keep coming back, they want to argue and discuss." this is down to a deeply ingrained love of the arts, he adds. - The Wire ed.404 Oct.2017
Bests yeah!