MOSCELS shows Sote’s breadth and skills—which are already quite masterful—growing and expanding into new textures, themes, and places both sonic and cerebral.
Growing and expanding into new textures, themes, and places both sonic and cerebral
To paraphrase the press release for MOSCELS—none of Ata Ebtekar’s aka Sote’s work comes necessarily easy to the listener. It’s harsh, abrasive, and lacks defining characteristics and handholds of electronic music most people need in order to “get it” or even enjoy it. To which one could reply, “Good. That means it’s working.”
Here we find five songs of electronic music generated solely from computer models’ electronic instrumentation. Ebtekar’s past exploits have drawn from his mastery of music both in the western intonations as well as drawing heavily from his own upbringing amidst Iranian culture and it’s own vast musical and cultural legacy. Which is why MOSCELS is surprisingly listenable.
“MOSCELS X” follows unconventional paths, lacking in percussion or rhythmic elements while nonetheless pulsing and swinging along in a manner that’s very orchestral and even pleasant in some parts. “MOSCELS Y” uses dark bass tones looping irregularly as more amorphous, digital swirls of steel wool clouds hover above the low frequency darkness making for an evocative, brooding piece until about halfway in where seemingly all hell breaks loose and the listener might have to pick up the pieces at the end. “MOSCELS Q” floats in on glassy tones like a Franklin harmonium which soon begins to warble and quake into shattered, pulsating chords ripping staccato lines across the stereo spectrum before devolving into a dissonant affair. “MOSCELS O” comes into hearing on flanged, gossamer pads while a swarming, brassy dissonance overtakes it in a drone befitting the last 20 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The mournful keening of synthetic tones eventually bursts into reverberated, shimmering blasts of alien horns in a manner both challenging yet cathartic. “MOSCELS Z” has a delayed figure in its opening, sounding not unlike acoustic guitar with synthetiic accompaniment woven into a gauzy standing wave of sound. From this emerges muffled, bristling pads and chords in a sweetly melancholic theme not unlike some of the later work of Jega. The paced progression and arrangement gives the final MOSCELS’ piece a certain sad grandeur about it, very cinematic in tone and composition. It’s one of the few songs one hears these days that fully deserves the adjective “epic” when used to describing it.
MOSCELS is, for an artist many find challenging, a very accessible work though it’s by no means easy or a sell-out work. It shows Sote’s breadth and skills—which are already quite masterful—growing and expanding into new textures, themes, and places both sonic and cerebral. Very worth the time to listen and reflect on.
MOSCELS is available on Opal Tapes. [Release page]
