8 Tracks: Of Iranian Music With Anika

I first met Ghazaleh during my music residency in Tehran, Iran at the end of last year, with Border Movement, Berlin. A very talented musician and an extremely interesting individual; she constructs her own breed of synthetic soundtracks, infiltrated by classical elements, composed entirely alone, with an underlying comprehension of rebellious rock and a unique relationship with the malleability of natural sounds. In fact, she is currently in Berlin for the Border Movement exchange, which i’m very excited about.

Soheil reckons he’s the next Geoff Barrow, whatever that means. He told me he likes to capture vocalists in his studio and take hold of their delicate voices, like a kind of Frankenstein. I assure him, it was not like this with Geoff but nonetheless i appreciate Soheili’s enthusiasm and eccentricity. A talented producer also.

I don’t know so much about this character, we never met but it was the CODON collective who put me onto him. Umchunga is the musical project of Nima Pourkarimi, based in Tehran. It’s a kind of rough, metropolitan construction site of sounds, that clog the passages of the ventricles. Beautiful. I actually love Umchunga – Nights better but can’t find it on youtube…
(CODON Interactive Media is the collective project of four Tehran artists touching on every form of artistic expression in the digital world, with a focus on interactive multidisciplinary projects.)

A kind of Iranian Radiohead (A band i heard surprisingly often in Tehran). An enchanting and vulnerable tune.

Husband and wife duo, Name band are one of the few daring enough to hide female vocals amongst their intricate tapestry of sounds. It becomes an instrument in this sea of sound, swimming alongside the male vocals, drifting far out onto the delicate and pastel mist of the horizon.

Googosh was one of the first Iranian artists I encountered after acquiring a copy of the Finders Keepers Persian psych compilation from my friend Booty Carrell, back in 2011, after spinning together at the Pudel, Hamburg. Booty has one of the most extensive knowledges of off the wagon music i know and i thank him for introducing me to the otherworld.

One of my personal favourites from my recent trip to Iran is this brother sister collab, who combine tourtured and melancholic, rock and Iranian inspired vocals with a techno, trip-hop inspired undercarriage; a reaction to the absence of things to do in the city, the brother tells me, and the constant building site that it embodies.

The queen of Persian music, Qamar was one of the first females to sing in public in Iran.