“Isfahan, 1993: at the age of fourteen, having played the tombak for eight years, I became very emotionally inspired by music. I used to wear headphones in order to listen to music all night long, until I feel asleep – unless my father came to remove them. In some of these beautiful, nocturnal moments I got goosebumps. I was present, and at the same time not, floating between being awake and dreaming. A feeling of completeness cradled me, creating a pure state of satisfaction. 

As time went by, I realised that music was the reason why I believe in the Universe and its beauty. By living a life revolving around music, I wished for things to be free and without borders; borders do not exists unless we create and believe in them. That’s why I aimed to find an eternal rhythm. In the past twenty-five years, since I left Iran, many things kept me from finding this rhythm. My initial incentive for making music almost disappeared, dismissed only as an adolescent thought.

During one night in Vienna at the end of 2018, I was unable to fall asleep and instead watched the sky through a roof window. In that moment, I was suddenly able to deeply listen to all these memories, my home, my old headphones. I cried the same tears of joy. Finally, a phrase popped up in my head: “ritme jaavdanegi”, Farsi for “rhythm of eternity”. While tapping it on my body, I realised that the beautiful prosody of “Rit-me-Jaav-da-ne-gi” is an 11/8 rhythm which impersonates exactly what I was searching for. Every track on this album is based on this time signature, reaching out to different atmospheres. 

Ritme Jaavdanegi is dedicated to my son Theo.”

Listed on Pitchfork’s list “The Best Experimental Albums of 2019”

“Ritme Jaavdanegi is superb.” (Juno Records)

“Scintillating, rootical and enthralling. Very warmly recommended.” (Hardwax)

“As if to hold two fingers up at both modern Western experimental music and computerised music altogether, each track on this LP is pure ancient futurism and a testament to the man’s immense stamina and elephant-hide palms.” (Bleep)