Mahdyar Aghajani is a Tehran-born musician, producer and film composer who records as Mahdyar.3
Recordings
4 releases, oldest first. Select one for its details and sources.
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Eshtebahe Khoob
اشتباه خوب
Spotify 13SoundCloud 12Apple Music 14
- Contributors
- Bahram Nouraei (producer, lyricist and vocals) and Mahdyar Aghajani (producer)612
Life & work
Early music and hip-hop
As a child he wanted to play electric guitar, but, he recalls, chose violin because it looked more like a guitar than the piano. He studied classical violin for six years and then Middle Eastern music for four. He says he met rappers through graffiti and offered to make music with Iranian instruments, seeking a hip-hop sound of their own.4
Producing and collaborations
His collaborations include Hichkas’s Dastasho Mosht Karde, for which Hichkas credits him with the music. Bahram’s discography credits both musicians as producers of Eshtebahe Khoob, and Mahdyar with its sound design and mix.56
Europe and experimental work
In a 2009 interview, Mahdyar said the freedom to make music without fear of arrest was the main reason he left Iran.7 He later recalled that discovering electronic musicians in Europe and hearing their music on loud venue speakers changed the way he imagined music.8 He also described making experimental music alongside production and film scoring as a space to test ideas without boundaries.9
Seized
For his 2018 solo album Seized, Mahdyar says he selected and retouched older experimental tracks and composed new ones.29 He recalled writing “Seize” soon after arriving in Europe, when its electronic scene inspired his attention to sound textures.10 On “Vow” he used recordings of the singer Bidad’s voice as an instrument, with quarter tones over a 6/8 meter. He connected “Vow” and the album more broadly to different forms of extremism.10 “Money Money” began with thoughts about class, status, luxury and elitism; he edited recordings of Ash Koosha’s voice to suggest the title words and described the repetition as a cycle reproducing itself.10 NTS listed a one-off Mahdyar guest show dated 26 January 2018 in its London schedule.11
Film work
His film work includes the soundtrack for No One Knows About Persian Cats, on which his site credits him as film composer, music producer and artist. For the documentary Life Is Waiting, it lists mixing and mastering.3
Sources
- 1Seized | Mahdyar · mahdyarmahdyar.bandcamp.com
3 quotes
Seized | Mahdyar
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0010560746_21.jpg
https://mahdyarmahdyar.bandcamp.com
- 2Seized | Mahdyar · mahdyarmahdyar.bandcamp.com
3 quotes
Seized by Mahdyar
released February 23, 2018
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- 3Mahdyar: official website · Mahdyar
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Mahdyar Aghajani is a musician, record producer and film composer born and raised in Tehran, Iran.
Project: ’No One Knows About Persian Cats’ soundtrack [feature film] Role: Film composer, Music producer, Artist
Project: ‘Life Is Waiting’ feature documentary [2015] Role: Mixing engineer, Mastering engineer
- 4Mahdyar · DMC World Magazine
3 quotes
At first it wasn’t that serious, we were learning the basics of music, practicing with easier instruments like xylophone and recorder but after a year or two our music teacher told my parents that if I still want to pursue music it’s time for me to choose an instrument and learn classical music. I liked electric guitar (because of Pink Floyd) but the teacher told my parents that I should either choose violin or piano. I chose violin because it looked more similar to electric guitar.
I practiced violin and studied classical music for 6 years with different private tutors and then I got bored of it and went on to study middle eastern music for 4 years with another private tutor. So I can’t say it was my idea, it was a combination.
In Iran, specially at that time, there was no such thing as “industry”. Persian hip hop was at its first days and rappers were using downloaded instrumentals from the internet. I met few rappers through graffiti and told them I can make music for them using Iranian instruments so we can come up with our own version hip hop instead of copying American hip hop. I became a well known producer quite fast and from there I went on to make other types of music such as electronic, fusion and film music.
- 5Hichkas Telegram post 20: دستاشو مشت کرده · Telegram
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دستاشو مشت کرده کلام: هیچکس آهنگ: مهدیار دریافت رایگان ⬇️ @hichkasofficial
- 6Bahram Nouraei — Discography · bahramnouraei.com (official site)
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Album / July 2015 Eshtebahe Khoob اشتباه خوب Music Producers: Mahdyar Aghajani & Bahram Nouraei Sound Design / Mix: Mahdyar Aghajani Cover Artwork: Setareh Malekzadeh Listen on Spotify Listen on SoundCloud Listen on Apple Music Listen on YouTube Music Order CD & Merch
https://bahramnouraei.com/assets/album-1.jpg
- 7Seeking Refuge · Iranian.com ·
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The big difference is your music is not illegal in the West. You don't have to fear being arrested and imprisoned just for making a particular genre of music. That's a big change. Yes it is. And it's the main reason I got out of Iran.
- 8this tehran producer spent ten years making an album about extremism · i-D ·
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“Coming to Europe meant I found a lot of new music, a lot of electronic musicians that I didn’t know in Iran. Seeing how they perform and hearing the music through super loud speakers in venues, that changed a lot for me — even the way I look at music. Before that I had only heard music on studio monitors, in cars and on headphones. It’s a very different way of imagining music.”
- 9INTERVIEW: Mahdyar · The Quietus
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Since I started I was always making experimental music on the side at the same time that I was producing other artists or scoring films. It was just a joyful process to give myself a lot of space with no boundaries in order to express my emotions and thoughts, testing different limits and seeing if I could push them further. I knew one day I would eventually put them out somehow but had no precise plan and wasn’t in a hurry to do it because I was quite busy with other commissioned projects that I was working on.
It was actually only a couple of years ago that two close friends of mine who had heard many of these unreleased tracks, started pushing me relentlessly, telling me almost every week that certain people need to hear this side of my production, so I finally sat down with a theme in mind, selected and retouched some of the tracks that I had made throughout the years, composed some new ones and Seized was created. It’s for this reason that I have to thank my friend Hirad Sab who’s one of my favorite visual artists, who’s also responsible for the creative direction of my album and directed the video for ‘Money Money’ which will come out soon. The other friend is Ash Koosha who’s one of my favorite musicians and with whom I have a lot of unreleased music that we’ve made together. I’ve actually used his voice on a couple of tracks on the album including ‘Money Money’.
- 10Mahdyar's Track By Track Guide to Seized · Drowned in Sound ·
5 quotes
It was originally written in 2011 but at the time it didn't have vocals. The idea was to make a modern melancholic intro with typical electronic instrumentation but with an unpredictable arrangement. Also, it had to give some sense of opening and entering some sort of unknown territory. During that time I was kinda obsessed with sound textures and details. I had just arrived in Europe and the European electronic scene had impressed and inspired me in that regard.
In Iran, I used to record many vocal samples from the traditional singer Bidad. In 2006 I decided to make a song using Bidad's voice as an instrument with quarter tones over a 6/8 time signature which is a very common time signature in both Iranian traditional and commercial music but not so widely used in Western music as far as I’m aware. In terms of arrangement, I was more inspired by other forms of storytelling in art such as paintings and films.
In a way, I was avoiding a verse/chorus structure and this approach can be seen in the majority of the album. As for the concept of the 'Vow', the original title was 'Qisas from the World'. I was thinking about different forms of extremism that exists all around the world, which is one of the main concepts of the album.
I originally wrote this in 2010 for the soundtrack of a performance to be played by a quartet in a museum in Paris. I ended up not using it in the soundtrack even though it was one of my favorite compositions. Later I recorded it using my violin and some plugins over a 3/4 beat. My initial thoughts behind the track were around the concepts of class, status, luxury, and elitism which, looking at the current world, boiled down to money.
The concept behind the arrangement is illustrating a closed cycle that reproduces itself in different forms but with the same core and that's where the repetition of the word "money" comes from. I edited some of the vocals I had from my good friend and great musician Ash Koosha to make it seem like he's singing "Money Money" with some sort of accent.
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- 12Stream Bahram | Listen to ESHTEBAHE KHOOB playlist online for free on SoundCloud · SoundCloud (Bahram)
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Release Date: 4th of July 2015
Lyrics and Vocals: Bahram Nouraei
Stream Bahram | Listen to ESHTEBAHE KHOOB playlist online for free on SoundCloud
- 13Listen to ESHTEBAHE KHOOB - Album by Bahram | Spotify · Spotify
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Listen to ESHTEBAHE KHOOB - Album by Bahram | Spotify
- 14ESHTEBAHE KHOOB - Album by Bahram - Apple Music · Apple Music
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ESHTEBAHE KHOOB - Album by Bahram - Apple Music
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- 17Seized · Mahdyar on SoundCloud
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Listen to Seized, a playlist curated by Mahdyar on desktop and mobile.
- 18Spotify cover art for Dastasho Mosht Karde · Spotify
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Near-black square cover filled with tightly spaced rows of Persian names in pale and copper-colored lettering.
- 19Dastasho Mosht Karde - Single by Hichkas | Spotify · Spotify
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Hichkas · 2019 · 1 song, 5 min 43 sec
Dastasho Mosht Karde - Single by Hichkas | Spotify
- 20Stream Hichkas - Dastasho Mosht Karde by Mahdyar · SoundCloud
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Stream Hichkas - Dastasho Mosht Karde by Mahdyar | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
- 21Rosva - song and lyrics by Hichkas | Spotify · Spotify
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Listen to Rosva on Spotify. Song · Hichkas · 2020
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