Following on from last year’s Maramar cassette, Aria Rostami returns with a further exploration of devious beat-driven electronica. This time around, Bolbol is a seven-track EP featuring mixes of the title track from Sote and Sepehr which ally curls of electronica and mysterious keyboard refrains with the kind of beats that sit as well on the dancefloor as on the sofa, and while the misty voices of Sepehr’s mix of “Bolbol” render it a delicious but strange journey, that is not all.
The Sote version has an intense tribal feel, the heartbeat rhythm surrounded by tormented voices railing in the background. The strangely flexible industrial vibe is tortured and emotive, like something updated from a Some Bizarre sampler. It flings and flays, distorted fireworks bursting over the dark sky as the hypnotic thud gives the impression of awaiting a hanging.
It isn’t all this way and that is the beauty of the release. The drone of the long-form “Endless” is tied to a drugged voice, endlessly recounting a visit to his mother’s friend. It is confused and the beat is a doomy, slowly evolving windscreen vista; a hallucinatory and disorientating mix of beats and drifts that grows busier as it progresses. The unadorned “Bolbol” is a scuffling, unsteady techno march, floor-filling and no nonsense but with rolling African drums; while the shapeshifting alien sounds of “Chesm” lie down with a rippling soundscape that evokes Klaus Schulze or Jean-Michel Jarre, that sense of gradual revolution through space, its Doppler effect almost in your ear. There is something intriguing about the beat programming all through the EP as at times it feels slightly off-kilter, keeping you guessing as each track progresses; a dropped beat here, a change of tack there like sleight of hand.The drifting atmospheres continue to evoke strange and liminal landscapes as the Bolbol progresses; there are hints of the sort of late-night obfuscation in which Trans Am used to trade, but this is one guy leading us into dark alleys one moment and oblique dancefloors the next. The muffled, almost congested air of the final mix of “Bolbol” sees the EP out, its scattered sounds tumbling around one another and leaving the listener with a desire for more.
This is well worth the cost of entry, and considering there are four versions here of “Bolbol”, they are all outstandingly different. Available on lush-looking hand-designed cassettes, this is a must.-Mr Olivetti-
