Saba Alizadeh last passed our way with the 2019 release Scattered Memories, which was described by Jennifer as “a meditation on modern Iran and what the country has lost and gained in its recent tumultuous history”. She found it “very melancholy, even elegiac in atmosphere”, an emotional response which certainly applies to today’s item Temple Of Hope (30M RECORDS SMR 008-1), a very solemn statement from this Iran composer (born in Tehran, currently living in The Netherlands).
Alizadeh combines the traditional music of the kamancheh, an instrument which he learned to play from age ten onwards, with more contemporary electronica moves – plaintive synths, samples, and beats. Some of the samples come from TV and radio broadcasts directly related to his theme (about which more shortly), and there’s also the harrowing singing voices of Saeed Farajpoury and Kayhan Kalhor. By his own account, he’s all about the sound-sculpting – a process which consumes his time in his “noisework” studio in Tehran – but there’s no neglecting his other artistic apprehensions, since a lot of his inspiration comes from visual images – either atrocities he has seen, or has visualised from information about other atrocities – and then his imagination won’t let him rest until the composition is completed.
The particular conflict he refers to on this record is the Woman, Life, Freedom movement which started in Iran in 2022, after the death of Mahsa Amini. It turns out there’s a wave of resistance to the strict rules surrounding the correct wearing of the hijab, and for the young female rebels it’s clearly become a matter of life and death – not just a struggle about religious dress, but also against police brutality, government corruption, oppression of minorities, and the general subjugation of women in this particular culture. To show his solidarity, and his emotional distress, Saba Alizadeh not only made this record but insisted on the posed cover photograph showing women standing in a circle around a school blackboard. It’s a reminder that this progressive movement started life in places of education – schools and universities. And he did the right thing by dedicating the record to his own mother.
To make his points even more emphatically, he gives provocative titles (said titles also printed in Persian on the back cover) to each grim track, such as ‘To Become A Martyr, One Has To Be Murdered’ or ‘Drop By Drop An Ocean Of Blood Forms’, although there’s still a glimmer of hope in the spirited title ‘Women Of Fire’. There’s a strong and purposeful mood to this forceful release. (19/12/2024)