Hallow Ground – HG1902
9T Antiope have made a name for themselves in the vibrant experimental
music scene of Iran over the past years. Now based in Paris, Sara
Bigdeli Shamloo and Nima Aghiani are expanding their stylistic scope and
team up with long-time friend Siavash Amini for their debut release on
Hallow Ground. After 2017’s »TAR« and »FORAS« the year after 2018,
»Harmistice« is Amini’s third LP for Hallow Ground and his first in
collaboration with other artists. Recorded in Paris and Tehran, the four
tracks are the result of »all the long hours of speaking online, being
kilometres away, it is a love child of those short times we actually got
to be physically in one place.« Vocalist and lyricist Shamloo enters a
dialogue with Aghiani and Amini’s sound art, which is from restrained
but interlocks voice and noise with striking subtlety. »Harmistice«
seamlessly blends the visceral with the sublime, the abstract with the
oh-too-real.
From the very first second of »Blue as in Bleeding«, »Harmistice« evokes
a sense of suspended terror. Shrill frequencies and aleatoric bursts of
feedback give way to a hard-hitting bass drum until Shamloo’s voice
arises from the chaos with an uneasy clarity. It’s the perfect opening
for a record that is built upon stark contrasts like this one. Amini and
Aghiani bring together synthetic sounds with acoustic instruments,
creating a tangible tension on which Shamloo’s sometimes sensitive,
sometimes emotionally detached delivery thrives. »It’s all based on a
dream, a nightmare about war,« she says in regards to her lyrics that
move between poetic abstraction and first person prose, blurring the
lines between lived experience and sinister premonition. »Harmistice«
takes inventory after the oneiric damagehas been dealt in real life.
As a whole, »Harmistice« is thus as ambiguous as its title suggests. As
an all-too-lucid dream about unspeakable things that are being lent a
voice it overwhelms the senses with an unheard-of volume. Drawn from the
depths of the subconscious, »Harmistice« may just be the most
challenging album in either 9T Antiope or Amini’s discography.
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