1st – 3rd NOVEMBER 2024
Studio 1, Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin
Tehran Contemporary Sounds (TCS) is excited to announce the fifth edition of its festival, taking place from October 29th to November 3rd, 2024, at Studio 1 in Bethanien, Berlin and Kino Central, Berlin.
As a Berlin-based platform, TCS serves as a vibrant hub for Iranian musicians, sonic and visual artists, and creative collectives from both the Iranian diaspora and within Iran. The festival aims to unite and amplify the diverse voices within Iran’s contemporary and experimental art and music scenes, which span across the globe.
TCS is committed to showcasing the unique talents of Iranian artists and musicians, fostering cross-border collaborations, and facilitating an interdisciplinary artistic dialogue.
Over the course of the festival, attendees can expect a rich program of 15 performances, film screenings, and a special Live-Cinema format presented by the Experimental Film Society (EFS), a Berlin- and Ireland-based film production and distribution company specializing in experimental cinema.
For new information, please revisit our website or social media channels.
FRIDAY | 1st NOVEMBER
BEHROOZ MOOSAVI & MMARIA
Behrooz Moosavi and Janna Heiß, an artist duo and couple, explore their shared history by blending their cultural origins, political influences, and social change. Constantly in a state of threshold, they navigate between their past and a longing for a stable future, searching for origins within the larger societal context. Their desire for a future framework becomes increasingly blurred and elusive.
Their creative process begins with self-reflection, evolving into a collaborative exploration of shared experiences through visual and auditory work. As they merge art and personal life, their work takes on a deeply personal, poetic, and tragic quality, drawing on themes of trauma—delocalization, dislocation, loss, and the destruction of a future. This ongoing dialogue shapes a fluid, profound exchange.
EFS SHOWCASE
Experimental Film Society (EFS) and Tehran Contemporary Sounds (TCS) present The Magic Circle, an immersive expanded cinema performance by artist-filmmaker Atoosa Pour Hosseini, composer Arefeh Hekmatpanah, and multimedia artist Yasaman Pishvaei. Blending 16mm film, live performance, and symbolic imagery, Pour Hosseini creates a dynamic, sensory experience that explores memory, perception, and nature’s elemental forces.
Hekmatpanah’s dreamlike soundscapes deepen the atmosphere, while Pishvaei, as a masked sorceress, enchants the audience. The performance reclaims suppressed archetypes of witchcraft, challenging patriarchal narratives and evoking a mysterious, otherworldly realm.
FARZANE
Farzané is a sound artist, composer, and researcher based in the etherlands. Interested in experimental approaches to sound, science, and technology, she explores various disciplines such as electroacoustic music composition, computer science, and linguistics. As tools in her artistic practice, she uses creative coding, field recording, live electronics, as well as acoustic and programmable instruments.
As part of Farzané’s ongoing research on machine learning methods within the framework of free improvisation, this performance investigates the affordances of physical gestures in improvisational settings. It showcases the outcomes of her recent experiments in gesture detection and pattern recognition from sensor data, demonstrating their creative application in interaction with an artificial improviser developed in SuperCollider.
NOUFAN
Noufān and Oliver Doerell met in Tehran in 2015. Last year they decided to bring noufān to life. They create something like a sound of postpunk – kraut, trumpets and noise poetry.
Noufān is a trumpet player & singer from Tehran living in Berlin . He comes from the field of performance and theatre.
Oliver Doerell is an experimental musician / composer from Brussels . He moved to Berlin in 1991. Oliver Doerell is the founding member of Dictaphone, SWOD and Cummi Flu, alongside he has also composed music for films and dance / theatre projects. He has released 15 Albums so far.
PARASANG & MAHAN MIRARAB
Parasang is a collaborative project led by London based experimental-electronic live musician Pouya Ehsaei, featuring a new combination of musicians from a diverse background. Parasang sound combines experimental industrial club music with different genres of music in an improvisational setting. This process explores new sonic qualities of the collaborators’ instruments in an innovative context.
At TCS Parasang will feature Mahan Mirarab, a composer and guitarist combining jazz improvisation and European ensemble music with microtonal ‘maqam’ melodies on double-neck guitar. Mahan is one of the prominent figures of Iranian and European jazz music and his music has pushed the boundaries of Jazz as a genre.
SATURDAY| 2nd NOVEMBER
MAHTAB SABETARA
Mahtab Sabetara is an electronic music producer and composer based in Berlin. Their music blends melancholic, distorted, and dark sounds with sharp synth lines and atmospheric elements. Improvised melody lines are crafted live during performances, where text is also integrated—not as vocals, but read aloud. The performance includes visuals by Baharan Eghbalzadeh, a multidisciplinary new media artist also based in Berlin.
HAM BABAEI
Ham Babaei is an Iranian sound artist living and working in Germany. He considers sound as a versatile material and integrates it into various artistic expressions such as performance, video, installation and sound-based sculptures. In addition to being a sound artist, Ham is also the founder and composer of the metal band Baramant.
In his current project, he experiments with his guitar in unconventional ways. Instead of using it as a traditional instrument, he places it on a table and creates different sound layers from noise for his experimental performances.
CINNA PEYGHAMY & SARATHY KORWAR (TCS Exclusive)
For TCS 2024, Sarathy Korwar and Cinna Peyghamy join forces to deliver an exclusive set centered around electronic transformation of traditional percussion. Both percussionists will manipulate a hybrid setup where the indian tabla and the persian tombak will have their sounds ran through guitar pedal and modular synthesizer. By following improvisation principles true to both indian and persian heritage, Peyghamy and Korwar will embark on a rhythmic journey where electronic and acoustic sounds collide and meld.
Cinna Peyghamy is a composer and sound artist, born in France from Iranians parents. His recent work focuses on real-time transformation of acoustic sounds.
His live act is a groundbreaking exploration of sonic realms, marrying the traditional resonance of tombak with the avant-garde possibilities of the modular synthesizer.
Sarathy Korwar is a drummer, percussionist, composer, and bandleader.. Korwar has established himself as one of the most original and compelling voices in the UK jazz scene. His music fuses jazz, electronics, Indian folk and classical influences with a focus on decoloniality, community, race and transcendence.
HUUUM
HUUUM is the live project of Omid Darvish, Rojin Sharafi and Álvaro Collao Leon, merging folk-influenced Iranian vocals with free jazz, ambience, electronic beats and impulses, bringing us dance music of an entirely new kind. HUUUM is synonymous with synthesis, openness, substance and avid noncompliance. Atypical rhythms and microtonal music, singing in multiple languages, sensitive improvisation, and the interlacing of artforms and cultures – HUUUM leads with transcension and lands with unstoppable movement. Both defying and bonding traditions simultaneously, HUUUM is reinventing our geopolitical musical landscape – via powerfully succulent vocals, deep-burrowing beats, clanging percussive effects and ever-moody reeds. Together, the trio tackles the question of how to find a form of expression of one’s own instrument for and within the sonic world of the respective other culture (e.g., the attempt to create pieces for the Serna – a Persian wind instrument – on the Western-originated instrument, the saxophone). The challenge is not small, nor is the outcome. The power of learning, unlearning and relearning is a palpable tool and guiding light for the trio’s creative input and output. And the result, heard and felt by the listener, is intensely satisfying. HUUUM is the living embodiment of the unknown, the re-learned, and the profoundly unapologetic – with nothing to stop it but the club’s last call.
SAINT ABDULLAH & EOMAC
Saint Abdullah & Eomac is a long-distance collaboration between New York-based Iranian-Canadian brothers Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani (Saint Abdullah) and Ian McDonnell (Eomac), a native of Wicklow in Ireland. Since 2019, the unlikely trio have been exploring the revolutionary possibilities of sound and sonic storytelling with their blend of ambient, IDM and abstract. The latest fruit of their explorations, the Chasing Stateless album, was released on Planet Mu in October 2023.
Initially starting work together in 2019, they were mutual fans of each other’s work and found that their own productions, Saint Abdullah using outboard analogue gear and Eomac in the box, complemented each other with a sense of rawness and heavy use of samples and extreme contrasts.
Their highly anticipated performance at the TCS this will follow their recent successful performance at Berlin´s Atonal, and is surely to stunt the audiences of this long-awaited event.
SUNDAY | 1rd NOVEMBER
“THE WIND WILL WEAVE US TOGETHER”
Cymin Samawati & Amen Feizabadi & Dilek Mayatürk
(TCS Exclusive)
The Tehran Contemporary Sounds (TCS) Festival presents a groundbreaking trio performance by multidisciplinary composer and director Amen Feizabadi, renowned composer, pianist and vocalist Cymin Samawatie, and poet and author Dilek Mayatürk. Together, these three artists craft a hybrid musical and linguistic performance that transcends cultural boundaries between Persian, Turkish, and contemporary soundscapes, defining a truly innovative sonic experience. Cymin Samawatie, known for her profound vocal fusion of Persian and Turkish texts with her background in contemporary music and jazz, delivers a powerful vocal performance. Her innovative use of language and piano creates a complex sonic tapestry that deeply resonates with the audience. Amen Feizabadi, whose work encompasses instrumental and electronic music, theater, and film, engages intensely with narrative and experimental forms. His multidisciplinary approach offers a seamless blend of composition, electronic sounds, and storytelling, crafting soundscapes that challenge perception. Dilek Mayatürk, the Turkish-born poet and author, enriches the trio’s sound world with her lyrical mastery and performative energy. Her collective and experimental work explores themes of memory and shared experience, which are brought to life within the trio’s unique framework. This collaboration offers a hybrid journey through contemporary sounds, vocals, Persian and Turkish lyrics, electroacoustic music, and cross-cultural storytelling, inviting the audience to explore the intricate intersections of voice, language, and sound. Join us for this exclusive performance at TCS 2024, where tradition meets innovation in a captivating exploration of global contemporary music.
TEMBER ENSEMBLE
TEMBER is a transcultural electroacoustic music ensemble founded in Berlin, dedicated to creating innovative music through unique sound’s timbre and atmospheres. The ensemble integrates traditional and contemporary elements, drawing from both acoustic and electroacoustic techniques. The core members of TEMBER include Alireza Ostovar (composition & live electronics), Valentina Bellanova (nay/flute), Kioomars Musayyebi (Iranian santur), and Petros Tzekos (percussion). The ensemble embraces fluid collaboration, expanding its formation and instrumentation, and often merging live electronics with interdisciplinary performance art. Combining influences from Iranian music and contemporary Western traditions, TEMBER’s sound bridges cultural and sonic worlds. Founder Alireza Ostovar utilises Max/MSP software to process live instrument sounds in real-time, fusing traditional and electroacoustic methods to create innovative, immersive sound experiences. The ensemble has released multiple albums, with its most recent works, “Moers Journey” and “Fall and Rise,” both nominated for the long-list of the German Record Critics’ Award.
NAGHIB SHANBEHZADEH
Born in 1993 in Boushehr, Naghib Shanbehzadeh began playing music at the age of three alongside his father Saeed. Based in Paris, Shanbehzadeh already has a decade of stage experience. Having collaborated with artists like Saeid Shanbehzdeh, Billy Cobham, Manu Codjia, Kamal williams, Tif, the young Franco-Iranian percussionist was able to benefit from both oral transmission (traditional percussion from the South of Iran) and scholarly writing (Western percussion at the Créteil concervatoir).
NAZANIN NOORI & ANDREA BELFI
TEGH
Shahin Entezami, known by his stage name Tegh, is a musician, sound artist, and practitioner from Tehran, Iran, now based in Paris, France. His music spans Electronic, Electro-acoustic, Ambient, Noise, Drone, Glitch, and Experimental genres. Entezami’s eagerness to explore the creative realm of other artists has led to numerous collaborative projects, namely “Temp-Illusion” and “Tegh & Adel Poursamadi.”
He has released eight solo albums as Tegh, three albums with his duo Temp-Illusion, and one under the Artirial moniker on labels such as Injazero Records (UK), PTP Records (US), Opal Tapes (UK), Hibernate Recordings (UK), Inner Ocean Records (CA), Midira Records (GE), Futuresequence (US), Flaming Pines (UK), and Bitrot Recordings (IR). Beyond his albums and productions, Entezami has ventured into more complex creations, working in sound design and composition for theater, film, and design projects, as well as immersive and 3D sound for virtual reality experiences.