Ava Rasti is an Iranian-born composer, pianist and bass guitarist experimenting at the interface between ambient, modern classical and drone. Ava has today shared her debut 130701 release The River.The concept and music for the album were initiated when Rasti participated in the Fabrica artistic residency, held in Treviso, in northern Italy. In time away from her studies Rasti would visit the nearby Piave River with friends. Finding moments of peace, and clarity in these picturesque surroundings. Only later did she discover The Piave’s history. The river was the site of two important battles during the Napoleonic and First World Wars. While both were key strategic victories for the Italian military, learning the river the title of “Flume Sacro alla Patria (Sacred River Of The Homeland)”, it was also witness to horrific losses of life. The juxtaposition of the present - Rasti and her friends at play - and the banks’ blood-soaked past, profoundly affected the musician and inspired the ideas behind the LP.
The album is concerned not only with how a location can hold, and hide, such contrasting memories, but also with the notions of memory and nostalgia. How personal perspective and time turn us all into unreliable narrators. Asking what is fantasy, what is true recollection, and exploring how stories alter with each retelling until reality is lost. How perception is in flux since we and our environment are constantly changing. Rasti paraphrases the Greek philosopher Heraclitus when she explains, “We never step in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and we are not the same human being.” Rasti and her friends swimming in The Piave, becoming just one small part of the river’s intricate intertwining legacy.
Rasti also found herself looking back to her childhood, and days spent with her father. Uncertain about actual and idealised events. To illustrate her thoughts and theories Rasti took small sequences from famous classical pieces, and replayed and replayed these tiny fragments, until they became unrecognisable from their source. The music’s repeating melodies mimicking our failed attempts to accurately recall those faded memories.
The album opens with “The River”, which represents an overview, like an aerial photograph capable of capturing all the dense layers of The Piave’s past. A short piece, it’s constructed from Eno-esque drones. Slow, icy, symphonic interference / resonance raised from Rasti’s bass.“The Dead Horse”, a remembrance of, a dedication to innocent animals killed in battle, begins as a delicate, melancholy, minor key hum. A buzz, that blurs, moving slightly in and out of focus. Mournful, muted and manipulated orchestration gradually building in volume and intensity, and only hinting at the hidden details involved in its creation. Mirroring the music of 130701 alumni - Jóhann Jóhannsson and the points of calm in Ian William Craig’s work.
“Wound” imagines The Piave as a fissure, a scar in the Earth’s “tissue”, that itself is transformed, altered by time and erosion. Here the bass strings’ emissions are harnessed and shaped into sighs, sad weeping waves of harmonics. Rising and falling, taking on melody. Bowed aches mixing with an almost inaudible scraping and scratching. Evolving within the repetition into a heartbroken electro-acoustic theme that’d make the perfect score for some existential Sci-Fi, such as, say either Andrei Tarkovsky’s or Steven Soderbergh’s “Solaris.” The album shares with another of Tarkovsky’s masterpiece’s, “Mirror”, a fascination with the inescapable persistence of the past. Incredibly moving, it taps into something. Perhaps the void, and how insignificant we are.
“Swimming With Him” examines the courage it takes to dive into the depths of our experiences. Face the countering currents of memories and dreams. Unafraid of where we’ve been or where we’re going. The track’s pulsating, fluctuating frequencies circle near and then further away. Like a powerful tide going out. Dark and hypnotic, drawing the listener to a place of drama, unease. Caught in the undertow. Dragged out of the shallows, into the deep. Pinpoints of piano dancing like harbour lights on a safer shore. Glittering glimpses of hope.
“Embrace The Abyss” aims to recreate The Paive’s conflicts. Its improvised percussion is a rattle of seemingly random, organic collisions. A tumbling elemental timpani that obeys only its own rhythm, and summons scenes of terrible storms. As with all the titles on the album, it feels under gravity’s pull. At the mercy of the moon, invisible forces that are impossible to resist. Forces far older, far greater than man.
“Teardrop” consists of treated keys. Distorted trebly notes, with rough jagged edges. Signalling truth cutting through to the surface. Sculpting serenity from twisted Fennesz-like glitches, and clipped, collaged sound design.
“I Remember” uses shifting chords and tonality to evoke the sensation of shaky recall. Rasti’s fingers sometimes faltering, halting as if trying to pick out a half forgotten tune. The morphing motif echoing as she reaches back into the mists to grasp some elusive treasure. It’s perhaps the album’s warmest moment. The previous songs’ sadness tempered with flashes of happier times. It feels very human. Hurt but healing. As if learning to be comfortable with loss.
Available in Dolby Atmos, Wound is out now on digital streaming platforms. The River, to be released 6th December, is available to pre-order as a very limited hand-carved lathe-cut vinyl 1st pressing.
Limited Edition of 30 copies
‘1 of 1' hand-printed cover photograph unique to each individual copy
Hand-carved Lathe-Cut Vinyl Lp
Hand numbered
Printed insert
Handmade folded art card surround
Thick recycled plastic protective sleeve
Each vinyl edition features a unique, ‘one of one’ hand-printed cover photograph. Photographic artist Alexander Gabriel was commissioned to darkroom print a variation of the cover image from the original negative for each individual copy. With photography so inextricably linked with memory, the variations echo the album’s overarching context and Heraclitus’s summation: ‘the only constant is change’.
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📸 @aslan.mohammadpour
Sep 12
