I've been having the best time

My dear friends near and far,

It’s been a big month and a bit since I last wrote to you. There’s been a lot of movement, many moments of joy, transcendental times I couldn’t have prepared for, and so much uphill effort. I’ve been in North America playing concerts, working on collaborations, and presenting at two conferences. Along the process I have had much needed conversations with fellow musician friends about what it is that we’re trying to do by and with our work. Through it, in this jetlagged and tired moment, what I recall is that this particular human activity has brought so much connection, purpose, and life-affirming joy.

I caught up with my oldest friends, became friends with new people I think I’ve been searching for for a while, and realised the bonds I carry across neighbourhood, state, ocean and generation lines, are so important to me and so much stronger than I realised.

I’d like to write a long and lofty newsletter telling you all about how incredible it was to perform at NIME with Chloe Sobek, present our paper in an honest way, to play my 502 Days of Self piece in a new iteration with a beautiful ensemble (Jacob Hiser, Cat Hope, Jaslyn Robertson, Ciaran Frame). I want to document exactly how precious the conversations I had at CCRMA and during TENOR and NIME were. If I could capture the feeling of playing with Mike Mulshine’s installations on my floors with Celeste Betancur, or dancing to her set with Jack Armitage at Algorave, I would.

A couple of my collaborations, like Knock Mark Stitch, I think will be going through big next stages coming up soon, and some new ideas of different live pieces and performance setups are taking shape right now, all coming out of my need to move musically freely rather than impressively. This feels like a timely shift in my thinking, and one I’m excited about seeing the future of.

Going to Atlanta between the conferences, I got to see how deeply the practice of music technology is shaped by the people in it. Talking to my Georgia Tech friends was so heartwarming because I’ve come back to (freezing cold) Melbourne once again with a renewed passion of moving away from a market and product-driven relationship with technology in music.

I don’t have it in me to recall this in more detail right now. The journey of the CCRMA set to the final day of chats with Setare Arashloo on our Knock Mark Stitch piece was a big one. I think an imprint of that is audible/visible in the music I’m frantically making right now, and I’ll be taking a minute to do some writing of words, music, and recording some new things to share.

In the meantime, I’ll send you another email soon because in just under a week I’ll be releasing the solo Floors album Ocean, Again through PEOPLE SOUND. Those of you who have had these newsletters in the past know how I feel about this album. I’m ready to offer it to the world (thank you Jassy for the terminology!) and hope it finds a happy home with your ears. Yesterday, I received the vinyl in boxes and opened it, and felt such a deep happiness about this album I’m so happy to have made.

For those of you free on Saturday 1 July in Melbourne, I’m playing a set on the Floors at the closing weekend of the Philippa Cullen exhibition at McLelland Gallery. After that, I’ll be in writing and making land until about September when I do the launch gigs.

I’ll upload videos and audio of the gigs and slowly will be bringing some of the research I do to my website over the next little while. My research and teaching doesn’t seem far away from my other musical activities right now, so I’ll put those things up as they become available for any of you who are interested.

I went away when it was getting cold and have returned now to a winter that requires a lot of attention from me.

We’re a particularly special bunch, the makers and lovers of music, this temporal ephemeral art form that has room to house everything but is opaque enough to conceal what needs it. Sound feels like its own room of requirement and making art with those I care about is its own raison d’être.

You can get the album and the vinyl here.

The video of my CCRMA set is available here; so much appreciation for Constantin Basica for all that he does.

Rest of the materials soon I hope.

Sending you great June wishes,

Iran xo

​

​
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​

​