KAMRAN SADEGHI ︎ABOUT
Kamran Sadeghi is unbound by place or convention. His multifaceted body of work spans scoring for film and choreography, live performance, audio and video art with electronic music at its core. Kamran’s music is something you enter; it is physical, using sound as a sculptural material to create immersive spaces defined by hyper-magnified shifts and sharp, spatial punctuations. Born in Iran and raised in America in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, Sadeghi’s experiences of isolation and cultural dissonance have shaped a nonconformist worldview, reflected in his distinctive and boundary-pushing artistic output.
Extremely process oriented with a catalogue built on “live takes” and custom designed sounds. Sadeghi emerged in 2005’s live improv, electro-acoustic, computer music scene under the moniker ‘Son of Rose’ receiving routine critical acclaim in The WIRE Magazine, sharing the stage with Fennesz, Tim Hecker and Vladislav Delay. Kamran worked for legendary composer Morton Subotnick, and one of the first galleries dedicated to multi-channel Sound Art, Diapason. As a sound designer Sadeghi recently worked with Matthew Herbert on the UK series TEMPLE.
Kamran’s album Disappearing Music (for Nam June Paik) was recorded while using the Paik/Abe “Wobbulator”. “Loss Less” was recorded live inside a defunct nuclear cooling tower and the audiovisual installation premiered at the Louvre Museum (Paris) and HKW (Berlin). Kamran’s soundtrack “Approximation” was in the group show 'Broken Music Vol.2' at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. Kamran’s collaborative album, ’42.41’ is with installation artist Zimoun. Other distinguished collaborations include Patti Smith, Jean-Luc Godard, Nan Goldin and Sasha Waltz.
Recordings and productions are published on Sternberg Press, Vinyl Factory, LINE, SUPERPANG, Sacred Bones, Opal Tapes, Apollo Records and Dragon's Eye Recordings. As a music curator at platforms such as Fridman Gallery, Public Records and e-flux/Bar Laika Kamran has worked with Marina Rosenfeld, Aho Ssan, DeForrest Brown Jr., James Hoff, Unseen Worlds, Kyoka, Unsound Festival, Gábor Lázár, Qasim Naqvi, Ghostly Int., Afrikan Sciences among others.
Sadeghi’s performances, soundtracks, collaborations and installations have been experienced at Kraftwerk-MaersMusic(DE) Louvre Museum(FR), HKW(DE), ICA(Boston), La Gaîté Lyrique (FR), Corcoran Gallery of Art(DC), CTM Festival(DE), KOW Gallery(DE), MUDAM(Luxembourg), MuCEM(Marseille), Centre Pompidou(FR), Berghain(DE) and Berlin Biennale.
From 2010 to 2018, Sadeghi was vital in the transition of the audio tour guide company, Soundwalk, into the group Soundwalk Collective. As a founding member, lead composer, sound artist, live performance director, music producer and co-creative director, Kamran developed, directed and produced the companies very first live performances and official music albums.
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KAMRAN SADEGHI ︎PRESS
“dizzying mix of airlock futurism, dubtech moodiness and hi-res digi-industrial grind. Abstract and brilliant, for fans of Pole, Ryoji Ikeda, Emptyset or Oval.” -Boomkat
“...very much in the spirit of Alva Noto, Pan Sonic, and the darker side of Autechre...” -Headphone Commute
“...there’s a unique delicacy and poise to his compositions. More like digital scrims made up of fluctuating groupings of microscopic events...” - The WIRE Magazine
“The New York City-based artist—who divides his time between there and Berlin—is an elusive character, though one who is well respected and much appreciated by those familiar with his work.”-XLR8R Magazine
“Brutal hooks and harmonies emerge through a close study of the science of sound as hypnotic poly-rhythms weave through shaped frequencies” -Decoded Magazine
“Kamran Sadeghi has been rising fast in recent years delivering a deep and gripping sound profile. Now with his latest material he's further exploring cosmic, bouncing melodies and textures” -Mixmag
“...immaculately engineered sonic sophistication.” - Furthurnoise
“...Sadeghi’s use of the slow-swelling properties of the E-bow filtering through subterranean museums of opaque, glassy dreamscapes like a less oppressive virsion of Halo Manash’s Isolationist Ambience. Disarming Stuff.” - The WIRE Magazine
KAMRAN SADEGHI ︎CURRENT
Disappearing Music (for Nam June Paik) sees Kamran Sadeghi return to LINE with a work utilizing the Wobbulator, a
1970s video synthesizer of the founder of video art, Nam June Paik.
Sadeghi’s previous LINE release was 2020’s Loss Less (LINE_110).
Live performance of‘Memory Landscapes‘ at The Noguchi Museum. A composition for modular synthesis and
delay loops that explores the flow of time through the layering,
fragmentation, and disintegration of live sonic textures. It reflects on
how we, both individually and collectively, experience the past,
present, and future, shaped by personal moments and the powerful forces
that alter our world.” –Kamran Sadeghi
Sunday, December 10 from 6pm Playback welcomes Canary Records, a label specializing in early twentieth-century folk masterpieces (mostly) in languages other than English. Founder Ian Nagoski is a music researcher and reissue record producer in Baltimore, Maryland who specializes in early twentieth-century recordings with a focus on the musics of immigrants. Over the past fifteen years, he has produced albums for Dust-to-Digital, Tompkins Square, Mississippi, Important, the Database of Recorded American Music, and his own Canary Records label among others. He travels and lectures across the US and Europe. In 2022, he co-authored and published the book and CD Zabelle Panosian: I am Servant of Your Voice.
Playback is a series of listening events curated by Kamran Sadeghi where record labels, musicians, composers, and producers feature recordings from their catalog, and premiere album pre-releases, archives, and other rarities.
e-flux events page
Playback is a series of listening events curated by Kamran Sadeghi where record labels, musicians, composers, and producers feature recordings from their catalog, and premiere album pre-releases, archives, and other rarities.
e-flux events page
WILD LIFE | Sep 8 - Oct 14
Location: Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna
Curator: Raphael Oberhuber
Artist: Kamran Sadeghi
Title: Wild Life
Medium: Sound
Length: 05:00 ( Loop Synced )
Edition: 1
Inquiries: office@galeriesenn.at
Location: Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna
Curator: Raphael Oberhuber
Artist: Kamran Sadeghi
Title: Wild Life
Medium: Sound
Length: 05:00 ( Loop Synced )
Edition: 1
Inquiries: office@galeriesenn.at
SPECTRAL 08.29.23 at Public Records
Kyoka LIVE (JP, raster-media ) - Kamran Sadeghi LIVE - Løt.te DJ
TICKETS
It’s another edition of Spectral, an exploratory and immersive evening led by composer, record producer and interdisciplinary artist Kamran Sadeghi. Informed by his own experiments around the physicality of sound, the nighto examines the many forms that music can take in the hands of innovative daring sound artists and composers. For this edition, we welcome the experimental Japanese musician and composer, Kyoko. With a penchant for chaos, she cobbles together glitchy pop-beats with danceable rhythms, resulting in a sound as confounding as it is transfixing. With releases on labels such as Raster-Noton and Onpa))))), she has a home in the unpredictable. Løt.te has performed globally both live and as a dj, at venues such as Berghain (BER), Pickle Factory (LON) and Contact (TOK).
Limited tickets will available at the door.
Introducing a new listening series "Playback" - Join us for the launch this Sunday April 23rd at Bar Laika by e-flux - 6-9PM - free
Playback is a series of listening events curated by Kamran Sadeghi where record labels, musicians, composers, and producers will feature recordings from their catalog, premiere album pre-releases, archives, and other rarities. For the first edition of Playback, Unseen Worlds label founder Tommy McCutchon will play the record label’s vinyl releases and more.
Unseen Worlds is a record label releasing quality editions of unheralded and revolutionary yet accessible avant-garde music. We are interested in media that captures a timeless ecstasy of creativity, that seem out of space, alien, yet are deeply resonant and approachable. They are both primary and mysterious. They contain multitudes, engaging the listener through their historical context and sheer musicality. Our releases are surprisingly disparate and reliable.
https://www.e-flux.com/live/
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum of Contemporary Art, Berlin – Broken Music Vol. II. includes 12” LP Soundtrack “Approximation”
My soundtrack “Approximation” is part of the group show at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. With works and records from various artists, including: Laurie Anderson, Katja Aufleger, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Douglas Gordon, Romuald Hazoumè, Anne Imhof, Christina Kubisch, Bernhard Leitner, Robert Lippok, Christian Marclay, Carsten Nicolai, Emeka Ogboh, Nam June Paik, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner and many more.
Original Score for “Approximation" in the digital age for a humanity condemned to disappear” by Mario Pfeifer
Published by: Sternberg Press
“Broken Music Vol.2” Curated by Sven Beckstette and Ingrid Buschmann
Magnetic Moments
Label: SUPERPANG
Filigree, liminal, ambient/noise sculpture composed and mixed in binaural settings, sounds best with headphones but also rewards with speaker play. RIYL Christina Kubisch, Kevin Drumm, Thought Broadcast, CMvH - Boomkat
Label: SUPERPANG
Filigree, liminal, ambient/noise sculpture composed and mixed in binaural settings, sounds best with headphones but also rewards with speaker play. RIYL Christina Kubisch, Kevin Drumm, Thought Broadcast, CMvH - Boomkat
Spectral, the exploratory and immersive event series and residency led by Iranian-born composer, record producer and interdisciplinary artist Kamran Sadeghi teams up with Unsound to present solo performances by Warsaw-based composer Resina and Paris-based electronic musician Aho Ssan in the Sound Room. Tickets RA / DICE
Spectral Blur, the exploratory and immersive event series led by Iranian-born musician, composer, record producer and interdisciplinary artist Kamran Sadeghi, returns for another edition in the Sound Room. For this installment Sadeghi has invited Monterrey-born, Texas-reared, NYC-based producer and DJ Delia Beatriz aka DEBIT.
Friday Feb.26 15h CET | Loss Less | Rencontres
International Paris/Berlin at Musée du Louvre | Installation multimédia |
mov | couleur | 22:53 | USA | 2021
“Loss Less” is a site-specific audiovisual work recorded inside of the defunct nuclear cooling tower Satsop. In the 1970’s, the U.S. was more than 20 years into its nuclear power program. In Washington State, a consortium of public utilities began what was to be the largest single nuclear power project in the country’s history. The construction was suspended shortly before the facility was completed and what remains is a structure 129 meters across at the base, and rising to a height of nearly 152 meters. Kamran Sadeghi used its natural acoustics to compose and reshape sound, capturing the architectural integrity and holistic immediacy of the nuclear cooling tower, while symbolically removing its entire existence. Maintaining an emphasis on the sound, Sadeghi created a 3D abstraction from a still taken on location. The title ‘Loss Less’ is derived from the term lossless compression - a process that allows for the preservation and perfect reconstruction of data (audio). In this case the audio was not preserved, but intentionally degraded. The title also expresses the reality of catastrophic loss and destruction caused by nuclear energy, and the call for less.
“Loss Less” is a site-specific audiovisual work recorded inside of the defunct nuclear cooling tower Satsop. In the 1970’s, the U.S. was more than 20 years into its nuclear power program. In Washington State, a consortium of public utilities began what was to be the largest single nuclear power project in the country’s history. The construction was suspended shortly before the facility was completed and what remains is a structure 129 meters across at the base, and rising to a height of nearly 152 meters. Kamran Sadeghi used its natural acoustics to compose and reshape sound, capturing the architectural integrity and holistic immediacy of the nuclear cooling tower, while symbolically removing its entire existence. Maintaining an emphasis on the sound, Sadeghi created a 3D abstraction from a still taken on location. The title ‘Loss Less’ is derived from the term lossless compression - a process that allows for the preservation and perfect reconstruction of data (audio). In this case the audio was not preserved, but intentionally degraded. The title also expresses the reality of catastrophic loss and destruction caused by nuclear energy, and the call for less.
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Between Us was created using field recordings captured with DIY contact microphones attached to the glass window of Sadeghi’s home in Brooklyn. These protective barriers in the buildings we inhabit operate as a filter from the outside elements. Sadeghi describes the impulse of "wanting to hear the sound outside as it was being transformed to what I was hearing inside." Each recording's tonal slips due to the presence of sonic artifacts such as resonance, noise, low rumble, feedback, and cyclical hum (caused, in part, by the microphones' excessive gain) suggests a gauzy, shifting passage of time at a distance.
“Spectral Blur”
Spectral Blur is a series questioning the categorization of music by exploring recordings from sound workers, composers and artists who’s works catch us by surprise. Having their own resonance, rhythm and frequencies, often made by altered or non-traditional instruments, musicians continue to challenge our vocabulary rendering classification obsolete.
Hosted by: Public Records / Public Access - Curated by: Kamran Sadeghi
Spectral Blur is a series questioning the categorization of music by exploring recordings from sound workers, composers and artists who’s works catch us by surprise. Having their own resonance, rhythm and frequencies, often made by altered or non-traditional instruments, musicians continue to challenge our vocabulary rendering classification obsolete.
Hosted by: Public Records / Public Access - Curated by: Kamran Sadeghi
“Loss Less”
A site specific soudn piece recorded inside of a nuclear cooling tower.
LABEL: LINE
DATE: MARCH 13 2020
AVAILABLE: Bandcamp (link below)
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A site specific soudn piece recorded inside of a nuclear cooling tower.
LABEL: LINE
DATE: MARCH 13 2020
AVAILABLE: Bandcamp (link below)
“Music For Pictures No.3”
“These evocative pieces by composer Kamran Sadeghi use disquiet and dissonance to open imaginary cinematic worlds”
-Bandcamp on Music For Pictures No.3
“Complex Headphone Mindfuck”
-The Stranger (Dave Segal) on Music For Pictures No.3![]()
“These evocative pieces by composer Kamran Sadeghi use disquiet and dissonance to open imaginary cinematic worlds”
-Bandcamp on Music For Pictures No.3
“Complex Headphone Mindfuck”
-The Stranger (Dave Segal) on Music For Pictures No.3
"Music For Pictures No.2"
“These evocative pieces by composer Kamran Sadeghi use disquiet and disonance to open imaginary cinematic worlds.” - Bandcamp
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“These evocative pieces by composer Kamran Sadeghi use disquiet and disonance to open imaginary cinematic worlds.” - Bandcamp
“Music For Pictures No.1”
The first in a new a new series of releases exploring Kamran’s film score, soundtrack and sound design catalog.
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The first in a new a new series of releases exploring Kamran’s film score, soundtrack and sound design catalog.
‘Uder The Peace Flag‘
feat. Hanne Lippard recorded at KW Institute Berlin
remixes from Sateq [Ateq + Sa Pa] & Steve O'Sullivan
Label: Cl.Series
feat. Hanne Lippard recorded at KW Institute Berlin
remixes from Sateq [Ateq + Sa Pa] & Steve O'Sullivan
Label: Cl.Series
KAMRAN SADEGHI ︎SELECTED SCORES / SOUND DESIGN
The producers wanted to try using parts from the original 1984 soundtrack by Ray Parker Jr.
images/stills: Mario Pfeifer
Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany
KOW, Berlin, GER
Original Score and Soundtrack: Kamran Sadeghi
Zelle 5 – 800° Celsius: Act 1–2 is a multimedia installation and performance that stands at the center of Negotiating the Law, a solo presentation of German video artist and filmmaker Mario Pfeifer. Through the artistic reworking of forensic materials and investigative strategies related to the deeply troubling case of the death of Oury Jalloh, a Sierra Leonean asylum seeker in Germany, the work aims to spark discussion about the coexistence of visual evidences, racism and institutional violence, and the importance of civil activism. The artist has closely collaborated with activists from Break the Silence, an initiative in remembrance of Jalloh that continues the investigation into his 2005 case—which remains one of Germany’s largest police controversies in relation to accusations of institutional racism.
Zelle 5 – 800° Celsius: Act 1–2 is a multimedia installation and performance that stands at the center of Negotiating the Law, a solo presentation of German video artist and filmmaker Mario Pfeifer. Through the artistic reworking of forensic materials and investigative strategies related to the deeply troubling case of the death of Oury Jalloh, a Sierra Leonean asylum seeker in Germany, the work aims to spark discussion about the coexistence of visual evidences, racism and institutional violence, and the importance of civil activism. The artist has closely collaborated with activists from Break the Silence, an initiative in remembrance of Jalloh that continues the investigation into his 2005 case—which remains one of Germany’s largest police controversies in relation to accusations of institutional racism.
Processing sounds for Matthew Herbert used in the British series Temple Season 1
Processing choir recordings for Matthew Herbert to be used in Life In A Day 2020
imgages/stills: Mario PfieferExhibitions
Museum Folkwang, Essen, GER
Pylon Lab, Dresden, GER
Original Score and Soundtrack: Kamran Sadeghi
Black / White / Grey
The video installation BLACK/WHITE/GREY (2020) investigates the relationship between hacking as political tool and the energy producing and distributing sector. During his research Pfeifer discussed different scenarios and situations with digital forensics, cyber-range instructors and in-the-field operators. Based on these conversations and site visits Pfeifer scripted a monologue for the German actress Sandra Borgmann to be performed in a virtual space that looks into different global key examples of hacking into critical infrastructure such as electricity grid operators, power plants, refineries or multinationals’ websites. While the performer engages virtually with the audience on basic questions of data security, a digital forensic and hacker shares details on paradigm changing hacking attacks commonly known as industroyer, stuxnet or trisis.
Black / White / Grey
The video installation BLACK/WHITE/GREY (2020) investigates the relationship between hacking as political tool and the energy producing and distributing sector. During his research Pfeifer discussed different scenarios and situations with digital forensics, cyber-range instructors and in-the-field operators. Based on these conversations and site visits Pfeifer scripted a monologue for the German actress Sandra Borgmann to be performed in a virtual space that looks into different global key examples of hacking into critical infrastructure such as electricity grid operators, power plants, refineries or multinationals’ websites. While the performer engages virtually with the audience on basic questions of data security, a digital forensic and hacker shares details on paradigm changing hacking attacks commonly known as industroyer, stuxnet or trisis.