Modern Persian Speech Sounds

Interview

I interviewed Omid Walizadeh who recently released the stunning album Modern Persian Speech Sounds. We discuss his journey from the underground Los Angeles hip hop scene to a rediscovery of his childhood treasury of Iranian cassette tapes, the recent explosion of vintage Iranian music on the global circuit, and a certain iconic Persian ice cream shop in the heart of LA.

The Album

The Shop

Mashti Malone is a famous Persian ice cream shop in the heart of Los Angeles. Featured flavors include rosewater saffron, orange blossom and pistachio, and sour cherry sorbet. Join us!

Biography

Arshia Fatima Haq is Los Angeles based filmmaker, writer and DJ, and is the founder of Discostan, a collective of artists curating sound, image, and text from an imagined federation of states spanning the regions of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia and eastward to the edge of the earth – from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay. Narrative threads include migration, celebration, warfare, nostalgia, homeland, borders, often within realms of Islamic influence, through the lenses of timeless traditional forms, the kaleidoscopic reinventions of pop culture, and everything in between and beyond. Most simply, Discostan is a love letter to the Dis-Orient. Follow her on her Website.

Published on August 05, 2014

Last updated on August 12, 2020

Topics

Migration

Nostalgia

Technology

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5 Video Clips from Europe

Playlist

by Giacomo Bottà

Was ist Europa? Mitä on Eurooppa? Cos’è l’Europa? L’Europe c’est quoi? What is Europe? This is a good and confusing question. I actually have no idea anymore, so I started digging into popular music videos and of course, where to start from if not from the capital of the European Union (which is actually only a small portion of Europe-as-a-continent)? That must be Bruxelles (but wait isn’t it Strasbourg the capital?), anyway here we go.

Artist: Stromae
Track: Formidable (Ceci n'est pas une leçon)

This song has been everywhere in French-speaking Europe. Whenever I heard it in a public place, I saw people smiling because the drunken mumblings turned into lyrics are so witty. The video plays entirely on the Louise/Louiza bus stop and square in Bruxelles. It shows Stromae himself wandering around drunk during the day, as captured by hidden cameras.

Artist: I Cani
Track: Hipsteria

Europe is also well, history, as we know. This long long history that we had the whole world to learn, willingly or not; it starts with the Romans, the ones which first brought Europe together in a huge empire, before the barbarians destroyed it all. This is Rome itself, in all its Hipstamatic splendour, in the video of I Cani.

Artist: Die Goldenen Zitronen
Track: EUROPA

Die Goldenen Zitronen might be the most intelligent band in Europe, their music is politics and their politics is music. They tackle the drama of immigration (check their «Wenn ich ein Turnschuh wär»), racism, gentrification and other very European problems. In this one, they tackle, well, yes, you could have guessed what exactly is «Europa».

Artist: Olimpia Splendid
Track: Jukka-Pekka

Europe also means boredom, repetition, small shops, special offers and low wages and all the frustration connected to that, maybe enhanced by consuming too much sugary fizzy drinks, as these three Finnish girls seem to convey here.

Artist: Sleaford Mods
Track: Tied Up In Nottz

Or is Europe just the view from a double-decker bus on the desolate centre full of chain shops, freaks, lost tourists and where The smell of piss is so strong / It smells like decent bacon? That might be it.

Biography

Giacomo Bottà is a travelling scholar with an aging PhD, who teaches at various European universities (including Helsinki, Karlsruhe Musikhochschule and Strasbourg) and researches about urban culture and popular music in Europe. Follow him on LinkedIn, X, or on WordPress.

Published on August 20, 2014

Last updated on February 02, 2023

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Capitalism

Migration

Place

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Five Video Clips from Finland

Playlist

by Antti-Ville Kärjä

Oriental shadow dances and muscle bounded hip hop – Finland's music is multicultural and has much more to offer than Heavy Metal, shows our 5-videoclip-series. The finnish ethnomusicologist Antti-Ville Kärjä presents a choice in relation to his current research project «Music, Multiculturality and Finland». He emphasizes, that he is not interested in presenting claims about «the best» Finnish videos.

Artist: Mirel Wagner
Track: Oak Tree (2014)

One of the rising stars of multicultural musical Finland, a singer-songwriter who clearly represents a shift in the ethnic palette of Finnish popular music. Things would be even more remarkable if she sang in Finnish.

Artist: Musta Barbaari
Track: Salil eka salil vika (2013)

A body-builder rather than a musician, «Black Barbarian» was elected as the Media Phenomenon of 2013 in a leading rock magazine's annual vote. «The most ripped liqourice of the city», according to the lyrics. The song's title translates as «the first at the gym, the last at the gym». His success signals also the importance of hip hop as a mainstream cultural form, yet implicated deeply in racial dynamics.

Artist: Jenni Vartiainen
Track: Suru on kunniavieras (2014)

One of the leading pop divas in the country, exhibiting here some elementary forms of audiovisual musical orientalism. But I just love her voice; and, she's been quite important for the queer audience as well.

Artist: Softengine
Track: Something Better (2014)

The ESC representatives of 2014, representing also a different, maybe a more metrosexual version of Ostrobothian male identity, as traditionally the area is dominated by wrestlers and baseball players who only speak unintelligible form of Finnish language, or, rather, do not speak at all.

Artist: Turisas
Track: Ten More Miles (2013)

Finland. Always. Period.

Biography

Antti-Ville Kärjä is an Academy Research Fellow heading a project at the Finnish Jazz & Pop Archive (JAPA) on «Music, Multiculturalism and Finland». The project centres on how the musical practices of migrant communities challenge conventional conceptualisations of Finnish music.

Published on June 30, 2014

Last updated on October 16, 2020

Topics

Migration

Place

Tradition

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