BOWN, by Mariam Rezaei

BOWN

by Mariam Rezaei

supported by

Harsh Agarwal In the words of a good friend "It's an absolute corker".

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€6.50 EUR or more
Cassette + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of BOWN via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 10 days

3 remaining

Purchasable with gift card

€11 EUR or more

1.	HMMM 04:23	buy track
2.	GEORDIE SPICE (ft. Gwilly Edmondez) 05:51	buy track
3.	GLASS BASTARD (ft. Teresa Winter & Bobby Glew) 09:48	buy track
4.	it COULD be jazz (ft. Bobby Glew) 03:18	buy track
5.	BURNING LIKE FUCK 03:40	buy track
6.	MARIAMBA (ft. Lukas Koenig) 04:41	buy track
7.	IDIOTIS MUSIC PEOPLE CUNTS 01:38	buy track
8.	I WANT U 2 (ft. Alya-Al-Sultani) 04:32	buy track
9.	SHORTIE SHORTS 02:10	buy track

about

Award-winning composer, turntablist and performer Mariam Rezaei approaches turntablism with an openness that's not just progressive, it's surprisingly optimistic. On 'BOWN', the central part of a triptych alongside 'BLUD' and 'SKEEN' (both released on Graham Dunning's Fractal Meat Cuts imprint), Rezaei reconsiders the established logic of turntable-based music, blurring expectations and persistently reaching into the unknown. In her capable hands the decks become chameleonic, imitating an arsenal of instruments that she subsequently bends into uncanny forms. Rezaei sees turntablism as a continuum rather than a fixed style, and she invites a carefully picked crew of collaborators - Theresa Winter, Luka Koenig, Alya Al-Sultani, Bobby Glue and Gwily Edmondez - to help distort genre hallmarks until they're completely unrecognizable; vocals become sputtering oscillators, drums are turned into walls of sheet noise and acidic electronics mutate into unstable, foggy drones.

Rezaei started DJing when she was just 15 years old, developing her skills in the competitive and male-dominated hip-hop battle arena. She began to realize that even in this fast-paced environment, the turntable was too often used as a vehicle to exercise a sequence of customary tropes. Inspired by art from across the genre spectrum, she developed her own unique language with the instrument, bringing in ideas from free improv and extreme noise to extend her palette. So she doesn't ask a question on 'it COULD be jazz', but makes a statement, replying tersely to a colleague's barbed comment after a performance at London Jazz Festival last year. Transforming wild horn squeaks into time-stretched gasps and scrubbed, chattering voices, and garbling drums from Guttersnipe's Bobby Glue into ratcheting whirrs, she assures listeners that jazz too is far more than a predetermined set of aphorisms. "How can I make the turntable sound as extreme as Roscoe Mitchell or Peter Brötzmann?" she wondered during an interview with Wire magazine in April.

YEAH YOU's Gwily Edmondez throws his self-styled "wild pop" vocalizations into Rezaei's continuum on 'GEORDIE SPICE', so she replies by juxtaposing his insectoid rasps with garbled West Asian chants and microscopic radio pop bleeps and beats. And traces of Grouper's vaporous articulations hang gently over unstable dancefloor vibrations on 'BURNING LIKE FUCK', situating the track a few steps from the club, outside in the smoking area or a nearby restroom. On 'I WANT U 2' meanwhile, Rezaei taps London-based soprano Alya Al-Sultani, scratching her operatic cries until they become chirps and cutting them into an abstracted conversation about the role of women in civilization. 'BOWN' is a confident, fervid statement from Rezaei that doesn't just burn up turntablism's presumed rulebook, it points a weary finger at an avant-garde landscape that still ignores the work countless women have put in to guide its progress. This is never more evident than on the tongue-in-cheek 'IDIOTIC MUSIC PEOPLE CUNTS', one-and-a-half minutes of garbled noise that throws a middle finger up to the industry, extending a warm embrace to the real ones.

credits

released September 29, 2023

Artwork by Sven Harambašić
Mastered by Declared Sound

license

about

HEAT CRIMES Athens, Greece

Instagram

discography

Altered Beast

Mar 2024
X-Nihilo

Jan 2024
BOWN

Sep 2023
Inner War Delirium

Sep 2023
Tomos 2

Jun 2023
bubu

Feb 2023
Psychonautic Escapism

May 2022

contact / help

Contact HEAT CRIMES

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like BOWN, you may also like:

Duma
by Duma

supported by 45 fans who also own “BOWN”

this is awesome graeme
go to album
Living Torch
by Kali Malone

supported by 38 fans who also own “BOWN”

My heart is beating slower and faster at the same time kwellou
go to album
Everywhere at the end of time
by The Caretaker

supported by 36 fans who also own “BOWN”

Actually astounding and emotionally moving, creating a community that I have been proudly a part of for 2 years OrsonXD
go to album
Fiction Prediction
by Planet B

The enigmatic punk-rap duo of Justin Pearson (The Locust, Swing Kids) and hip-hop producer Luke Henshaw make their long-awaited return. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 7, 2024
go to album
First Love 初恋 : Debut Album and Demo Tracks
by Space Streakings

Released via experimental institution Skin Graft, “First Love” is the perfect reintroduction to one of Japan’s most criminally underrated noise-rock bands. Bandcamp Album of the Day Nov 1, 2018
go to album
ON040 - Monoceros
by Forcefed Horsehead

Forcefed Horsehead describe themselves as “grindpunk,” and their visceral mesh of extreme metal subgenres heads direct for the pit. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 28, 2023
go to album
hybtwibt?
by Space Afrika

supported by 36 fans who also own “BOWN”

i haven't been through what you've been through, but i want to understand everett
go to album