(Photo by Artaebtekar Arash Bolouri) Here’s a rather strange but intriguing project we got pitched. Out 12 July 2024 on Oscar Powell’s Diagonal Records on digital and vinyl is the all new album by Sote (Ata Ebtekar), a maximalist computer music maker. “Sound System Persepolis” features 5 new compositions.

“I think it’s lazy to just be moving around hi-hats and kicks these days,” Ebtekar explains. “That’s not going to be unique music. I’m interested in getting to the feeling that a kick and a snare give to you, via the possibilities of pitched and structured patterns of tones and harmonics.”

Check out the teaser below to know what to expect.

The material is actually intended to be performed live, on muscular and multi-channel soundsystems whether gallery or club. “Often sound design and sound synthesis is very serious academic music – I love a lot of that music, but ‘Sound System Persepolis’ connects this back to the body,” says Ebtekar. “I want the listener to be active with their brain and I want all their organs and limbs to be moving to different rhythms.”

Having made music through various means over the course of his long career – including electroacoustic music rooted in Iranian instrumentation, pure noise music, and analogue synthesis – since he and his family returned to Iran ten years ago, Ebtekar has made music purely inside a computer: “My family moved to Tehran with three suitcases each, so now I just use a computer – sanctions meant I couldn’t ship anything back. If you have the skills and knowledge, you can achieve any sound you want.”

The album’s five track titles might, at first glance, look randomly generated, but are in fact coded references to the audio synthesis language each one uses, plus the album title and various geographical locations in Iran – the Zagros mountain range, the salt desert Lut, the Hyrcania forest, the Caspian sea, and Iran’s mountain Damavand.

With the release of “Sound System Persepolis”, Sote’s catalogue runs to 15 albums (both under the Sote moniker and as Ata Ebtekar), plus a few 12″s, remixes and a number of other projects.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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