Kamran Sadeghi, “Sonatine” (self-released)
Now based in New York City, Kamran Sadeghi was one of Seattle’s most interesting electronic-music producers in the ’00s. Recording under the alias Son of Rose, Sadeghi excelled in the microsound mode. His tracks back then made the subliminal sound sublime and the intimate sound immense. In a 2006 Data Breaker column, I praised Son of Rose‘s “ability to conjure vast, astral depths through densely layered tones and granulated textures.”
The last decade has seen the Iranian-American musician branch out into more dance-oriented techno, but he still spends a lot of time working in more abstract realms with modular synths. He’s been laboring on the “Music For Pictures” series of releases, which derive from Sadeghi’s storehouse of myriad film score, trailer, and soundtrack sessions. Music for Pictures No. 1 exhibits his mastery of evoking chilling and enigmatic atmospheres and rhythmically complex cinematic vistas reminiscent of the most exacting IDM from the ’90s. Its opening track, “Sonatine,” instantly plunges you into a mysterious world in which insectoid twitchings and cheeps skitter within a profoundly eerie drone and sinister bass groans. It’s a soundtrack for microbial chaos and a phenomenally disorienting headphone experience.
