Ata Ebtekar and the Iranian Orchestra - Ornamentalism [CD]

Recorded with the Iranian Orchestra in Tehran,
Ata Ebtekar did a real organic electrocution
of Alireza Mashayekhi's original scores.
Result is one more time beautiful, a mix between acoustic devices, electronic and orientalism.

An Organic Electrocution
Perfect follow-up to the highly acclaimed Persian Electronic Music (SR277), this new Persian Music album involves a cast of seasoned musicians performing works written by legendary Iranian composer Alireza Mashayekhi; in which Ata Ebtekar (aka Sote) was granted complete creative freedom by Mashayekhi himself to transform these compositions into fully realized pieces using his techniques of synthesis and electronic manipulation. It's an organic electrocution without sacrificing the beauty of the performance. These sound sources and compositions were metamorphosed via electronic processing, rearranged and decomposed using sound generators, effect boxes, modular synthesizers and samplers. Finally, Ebtekar programs synthetic sounds and adds new electronic harmonies, melodies and soundscapes to the sonic palette of Western classical music and Persian instrumentation for a unique musical experience. Sote unites the grace and symmetry of noise and silence inside the magic circle of electronic music composition.

The Tehran Contemporary Music Group
Cofounded in 1993 by Farimah Ghavensadri and Alireza Mashayekhi. In 1995 Mashayekhi established the Iranian Orchestra for New Music as a performing entity. The Tehran Contemporary Music Group's main goal is the presentation of new music in order to promote young composers and performers. The Group has also helped to establish the Biannual For Composing and Performing of Contemporary Music in Iran.

Alireza Mashayekhi: a short biography
Alireza Mashayekhi was born in 1940 in Tehran, Iran. He is one of the pioneers of modern music in Iran. Mashayekhi's works have been performed in Iran and abroad for more than 35 years. Mashayekhi believes that contemporary composers should create music in wide range of styles. His own compositions have tended towards three major direction: pieces that are directly inspired by Iranian music (e.g. Symphony No. 5, Persian Suite and Shahrzad) and compositions that are not directly related to Iranian music (e.g. Symphony No. 6, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,Sonata for Piano) and multicultural compositions (e.g. Symphony No. 8 and the electronic composition East-West).

At the time of Stalin in the USSR, many pieces were composed with predetermined identities in honor of Marxism and Leninism by the request of the governmental authorities or by the artist's own whishes. Among these pieces those with artistic rightfulness remained and they were honored in both East and West, but the political weight of the other ones did not succeed to help them survive. Alireza Mashayekhi

Alireza Mashayekhi is regarded as a pioneer Iranian avant-garde composer whose ideas and works, which have been performed in Iran and abroad for more than 35 years, have greatly influenced the contemporary music in Iran. Hooman Asadi of the University of Tehran, Iran

Ata Ebtekar aka Sote: a short biography
Sote is an Iranian-American electronic composer and sound artist. He was born in Germany to Iranian parents, spent the first eleven years of his life in Iran and the next six years in Germany. At the age of seventeen he moved to the United States and lived in the Bay Area for fifteen years. He has spent the last few years living in Tehran and working on several projects. One of these projects was released in 2007 as a double disc set called 'Persian Electronic Music - Yesterday and Today' (sub rosa SR277) for which he compiled early electronic music from Alireza Mashayekhi who had created these compositions forty years ago. Disc two features Ebtekar's own electronic compositions to present a timeline in modern Iranian music history. Sote's compositions are sonic tales synchronously decoding and regenerating customary patterns of thought in nature; aural designs of crisis and harmony where contempo meets folklore, orchestrating an artificial saga with a variety of illuminations and analysis. He 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'. He has released several cds and vinyls on Dielectric/RLR, Spundae and especially on Warp.

TRACK LISTING CD / 13 TRACKS

01 Pearly gates 05:38 / 1999
02 Little tales 4point5 02:03 / 1993
03 Ornamental 09:51 / 1995
04 Little tales 3 03:17 / 1993
05 Broken silence Cmpd 03:20 / 2002
06 Turquoise gas in ice 03:35 / various
07 Aural blue 00:24 / various
08 Phonata opus 11 remod. 06:35 / 1999
09 Little tales 2 02:02 / 1993
10 Meta XY 12:58 / 2001
11 Pattern logic 00:21 / various
12 Little tales 1 02:25 / 1993
13 Tonus 03:02 / 2006

04-little-tales-3.mp3

/11-pattern-logic.mp3

/13-tonus.mp3