Remember Pantea Armanfar, the Tehran-based composer and visual artist reviewed by yours truly last June? There’s fresh material here for you to enjoy in a relatively short session of active listening (see the label’s name). When it comes to people who dig deep into the core of a given sonority to extract materials for ever-changing “alternative” reflection, we’re always ready for a heads-up.
In this case, the investigations went beyond the mere “field recordings” domain, focusing particularly on the computerized modification of sounds derived from everyday objects; just look at the titles of some of the tracks to have an idea. What emerges from this type of research is earnest electroacoustic abstractionism, as Pantea seems purely interested in redesigning a source’s essence in such a way as to draw stimuli and curiosity from that radical alteration.
The beauty in all this? One doesn’t get the impression of something totally absurd or implausible. There is a definite logic in what we perceive, a sort of “familiarity of the apparently unknown” that makes us feel completely at ease, recognizing a well-defined path in the midst of a myriad of different signals. Speaking of which, these are pliable emanations dancing across the auditory range, placing themselves in front or behind us to tickle our attention, peek-a-booing from corners. In a word, they are the fruits of intelligent experimentation.
Pantea confirms herself to be a worthy seeker of disguised meanings. Understanding them is not a certainty, but they do talk to our ears in explicit terms.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 