TEMF
2021
The inaugural Timcheh Electronic Music Festival (TEMF 2021) was hosted on November 12th and 13th at the Kunsthafen im Rhenania in Cologne. This event convened 19 artists from across Europe, both Iranian and international, for a two-night celebration of experimental electronic music. The festival showcased a fusion of audio-visual artistry, live concerts, and DJ sets. The first evening was a showcase of leftfield electronic music, while the second day transitioned from experimental performances to a vibrant club night. TEMF was privileged to partner with renowned curators such as Ata Ebtekar “Sote,” Behrooz Moosavi, Stefanie Grawe, and Nesa Azadikhah.
In addition to the performances, a networking event on Saturday morning was arranged to foster collaboration and dialogue among artists.
Despite coinciding with a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, the festival drew an audience of over 400 individuals. The positive reception from attendees and performers alike was a compelling endorsement for the continuation and further development of the festival series.
Date: 12-14 November 2021
Location: Kunsthafen im Rhenania, Cologne, Germany
Financed by: Musicfonds e.V., City of Cologne, Ministry of science and culture NRW
Artists: Behrooz Moosavi & MMARIA, Jessica Ekomane, Rojin Sharafi, Jan St. Werner, 9T Antiope Pari San, ArtSaves, Stefanie Grawe “GRAY”, Sonae, Pouya Ehsaei, Kamyar Keramati, Monibi, Anahita Shamsaei, Razieh Kooshki & Vahid Qaderi
artists
Jessica Ekomane
Jessica Ekomane is a French-born and Berlin-based electronic musician and sound artist. Her practice unfolds around live performances and installations. Her quadraphonic performances, characterized by their physical affect, seek a cathartic effect through the interplay of psychoacoustics, the perception of rhythmic structures and the interchange of noise and melody. Her ever-changing and immersive sonic landscapes are grounded in questions such as the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics or the investigation of listening expectations and their societal roots.
Jessica Ekomane was one the six composers chosen as collaborators by Natascha Süder Happelman for her installation at the German pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2019. She’s been part of the SHAPE Platform roaster of artists for 2019. September 2019 saw the release of her first LP Multivocal via Important Records. Her work has been presented in various institutions worldwide such as CTM festival (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Dommune (Tokyo) and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha).
Links
Website: www.jessicaekomane.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jessica.ekomane
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jessicaekomane
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/jessica-ekomane
Behrooz Moosavi and MMaria
Past events flash in our memories – flashlights, connected and yet single events.
One hardly remembers the day when one realized that all this will eventually make us run against the wall. The public space is taken by the others, controlled and determined. The retreat into ever smaller, narrower, structures are the consequences of a worldwide pandemic and a worldwide awareness that we are on a knife’s edge, standing with one foot over the precipice. The boundaries between war, severe weather disasters and disease are blending into a single black hole that is sucking us and our minds.
Behrooz Moosavi and MMaria in their performance try to create an image and a sound for a world, a feeling that holds us captive, with no alternative.
Behrooz Moosavi is a music producer born in Tehran and based in Berlin. Janna Maria a.k.a MMaria is a photographer and visual artist based in Berlin.
Websites: www.behroozmoosavi.com , www.jannaheiss.com
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/behrooz-moosavi
Rojin Sharafi
Rojin Sharafi is a Vienna-based, Tehran-born soundartist, performer and composer of acoustic and electronic music. Her music crosses the borders between genres and cites many influences, such as noise, folk, ambient, metal, and contemporary music. She utilises digital instruments of her own devising, such as a synthesiser and drum machine, to produce entirely unique textures.
Her debut album “Urns Waiting To Be Fed” debuted in 2019 at Opal Tapes sublabel Zabte Zote. Lauded by The Quietus as “the truly unexpected,” it has been called “one of [2019’s] most ecstatic and fiercely original hours of music.” “Zangaar,” her second album, is inspired by the interplay between literature and sound and was released in 2020.
Throughout her career, she has collaborated with countless soloists, ensembles and collectives like Why Not? Collective, Schallfeld Ensemble, Black Page Orchestra, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Ensemble United Berlin. She regularly works with film- and dance-productions, for organisations such as Arte Creative and Tanzquartier.
Sharafi has been part of the line-up at international festivals such as SET x CTM 2018 (TEH), Unsafe+Sounds 2018 (VIE), Hyperreality 2019 (VIE), Wiener Festwochen 2020 (VIE), Musikprotokoll 2020 (Graz), No Bounds (Sheffield), Skanumezs (Riga), Schiev (BXL), Rokolectiv (BUH), UH Fest (BUD), Intonal (Malmö). Her work has been presented across the world, in cities like Basel, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Gent, New York City, Riga, Sheffield and Washington DC.
She is a SHAPE 2020 artist and in 2018 was awarded the Austrian female Composers prize at Wien Modern Festival.
Currently, Rojin Sharafi is pursuing her masters in sound engineering and composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she is delving into deeper research and understanding of digital music performance.
Links
Website: https://rojinsharafi.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/rojinsharafi
Jan St. Werner
Jan St. Werner is an artist and electronic music composer based in Berlin. Widely recognized as one half of the electronic music group Mouse on Mars @mouseonmars_official, he has also pursued a solo career creating sound works under his own name as well as Lithops, Noisemashinetapes, and Neuter River. Starting in the mid-1990s as part of Cologne’s A-Musik collective, St. Werner has released a steady stream of records both as a solo artist and with Mouse on Mars. He has collaborated with Oval’s Markus Popp as Microstoria and contributes music for installations and films by visual artist Rosa Barba. During the 2000s Werner acted as the artistic director for STEIM, the Dutch Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music. In 2013 St. Werner released Blaze Colour Burn, the first of a series of experimental recordings called the Fiepblatter Catalogue. St. Werner realized sound interventions and installations in art spaces such as the ICA London, documenta Athen and Kassel, Kunsthalle Duesselorf, HKW Berlin, Lenbachhaus Munich. Werner has been a visiting Professor at MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) in 2016 & 2017, served as Professor for Dynamic Acoustic Research (DAF) at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg between 2017 and 2021 and was a visiting Professor for Sound and Performance at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. He is currently Artist in House at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany.
Links
http://fiepblatter.com
http://www.mouseonmars.com
https://daf.adbk-nuernberg.de/
9T Antiope
The duo 9T Antiope consists of the Iranian musicians Nima Aghiani and Sara Bigdeli Shamloo. Their main focus is on experimental music, using layers of acoustic instruments, electronics and combining them with vocals and lyrics in order to narrate tiny bits or huge landscapes of the chaotic worlds they vision along with their inhabitants. They’ve had releases on multiple labels such as PTP (Purple Tape Pedigree), Eilean Rec., Hallow Ground, Zabte Sote/Opal Tapes, Flaming Pines, Unperceived Records and an upcoming project on American Dreams.
Links
Website: https://www.9tantiope.com/
Bandcamp: https://9tantiope.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/9tantiope
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/9TAntiope
Twitter: https://twitter.com/9TAntiope
Ata Ebtekar
Ata Ebtekar, also known as Sote, composes music with a deeply held conviction that rules and formulas should be deconstructed and rethought. He alters musical modal codes from their original tonality and rhythmic tradition to achieve vivid, synthetic soundscapes.
Over the last three decades, he has published his work via established labels such as Warp, Sub Rosa, Opal Tapes, Diagonal and Morphine, among others. In 2018, he founded a new label called ‘Zabte Sote’, which functions as a sub-label of British record company ‘Opal Tapes’ and focuses on releases by Iranian experimental electronic composers.
Sote is on the jury panel of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and has created commissioned work for and performed at a.o. Berghain and CTM Festival (Berlin), Unsound Festival (Krakow), Cafe Oto (London), Jazzhouse (Copenhagen), TodaysArt Festival (The Hague), Bozar (Brussels), Ultima Festival (Oslo), Donaufestival (Krems), Donaueschinger Musiktage, Mira (Barcelona), Terraforma (Milan), and many more.
Links
Website: http://www.sotesound.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sotesound
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ata_ebtekar/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ata.sote.ebtekar
Zabte Sote (label): https://zabtesote.bandcamp.com/
Pari San
Pari San is a (Iranian-German born) singer, songwriter and producer, who conjures sensual, urban songscapes between pop and avant-garde.
She studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from the age of 17 before going on to concentrate on music and has worked with a whole range of artists such as Oval before launching the band Pari San together with Paul Brenning, whom she met in South Germany during a creative period of music production. Pari San started to produce their very own world of pop music with an intense attitude towards the general boundaries of that genre, walking on a thin line between pop songwriting, electronic music production and extrasensory sounds. The songs move between hypnagogicavant-garde pop music, artistically arranged vintage R&B and emotionally sweltering pop electronica. Beat landscapes, carpets of synthesizer sounds, and oppressively deep beats blur the boundaries between daydream and nightmare into a state of suspension between different worlds. Her unmistakable vocal style effortlessly dissolves the boundaries between day and dream.
Pari is currently working on her new 70-minute intermedia live performance, developed by an international collective of artists, which will premiere at the Münchner Kammerspiele in Jan. 2022. These days, Pari lives and works in Berlin and is looking back at a series of concerts and very special nights, e.g. at the infamous Fusion Festival, Lollapalooza Festival, touring Paris, London and Japan or supporting Austra at Berghain and Roisin Murphy at the Tollwood Festival.
Links
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pari_san_music/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdbHbnfspbg&ab_channel=PariSan
ArtSaves
The Iranian producer ArtSaves is known for his unpredictable, ominous sound that ventures into the experimental territory. ArtSaves music career started in Tehran in 2012, where nightclubs are prohibited by law and his performances remained within the confines of undisclosed parties. The producer released his latest EP ‘Chimera’ under his own imprint Kopi / ی پ ک. ‘Chimera’ compasses a melange of ambient and industrial techno ambiguously drawing inspiration from his Iranian heritage while targeting the concepts of identity, authenticity and belonging.
As an alumnus of the Red Bull Music Academy in Berlin 2018, ArtSaves was mentored by musical luminaries during his residency. Shifting between rhythmically dismal delicate beats to hardcore techno, he prefers to be indefinable but leaves the dance floor pulsating. ArtSaves is invested in amplifying the Tehran scene which is known for its highly experimental and haunting sounds. He currently resides between Vancouver and Tehran.
Links
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/artsvs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artsvs/
Bandcamp: https://kopirecs.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artsvstra
Stefanie Grawe
Stefanie Grawe aka GRAY is a designer and electronic music producer from Cologne working at the intersection of design, music and technology. With her audiovisual approach she expands the boundaries of what can be experienced acoustically.
GRAY produces melancholic electronica and uses somber melodic pads and broken drum rhythms to create atmospheric soundscapes that trigger or engage a sensory experience beyond pure music. Both the textured building blocks of her sound collages and the visual extensions of her works play a major role in this process.
For the exhibition “Design Group Pentagon” at the Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne, she produced the song “540°” (2020), which was released on a limited vinyl release in collaboration with the museum and the Kompakt Records label, along with the work of producers Thomas Fehlmann, Justus Köhncke and The Bionaut. In addition, she already released the remix “Light Is Winning” for Natalie TBA Beridze (2016) on the Monika Enterprise label. GRAY continues to be active in the female:pressure network and is completing her master’s degree at the Folkwang Institute for Pop Music.
Links
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sound_of_gray/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grayofficial
Sonae
Sonae is exploring electronic music as an art form that points beyond itself, just releasing a new album (laaps) and premiering the related multimedia-installation SUMMER with video artist Jennifer Trees this year. Sonae released her first two albums on Berlin-based label Monika Enterprise (2015, 2018), followed by the remix mixtape Music For People Who Shave Their Heads on London’s Bit-Phalanx (2019). Other achievements: Artist in Residence at Klingklang Studio Düsseldorf (2016), Women in Computer Music Scholarship at CCRMA Stanford University (2017), MA Music at IFPOM Folkwang University of Arts (2017), Artist in Residence at NICA artist development (since 09/2020).
Links
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonae_music/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/sonaemusic
Pouya Ehsaei
Pouya Ehsaei is an Iranian musician, sound designer, producer, curator, and promoter currently residing in London. His solo practice involves experimenting with different compositional techniques and exploring the aesthetics of sound as a matter. His second solo album RocRast, a selection of live performances on modular synthesizers, was released in Oct 2020 on ZabteSot/Opal Tapes. Besides his solo project he is involved in various collaborations with dancers, performers, and other musicians. He is the founder and the leader of the band “Ariwo”, an Iranian/Cuban band. He has composed, performed, and produced two studio albums with Ariwo and a few singles. In 2018, Pouya co-founded “Parasang” where he invites musicians from around the globe to join him and create spontaneous, dark, and hypnotic live shows that bring old traditions and new technologies together. He started his career in the underground scene of his hometown Tehran where he was playing electronic guitar in two bands and has since performed in acclaimed venues such as Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Kings Place, Village Underground, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London as well as several festivals of music and performance including Womex, Womad, Line Check, Boomtown and SPILL.Links
Website: https://www.pouyaehsaei.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/pouyaehsaei
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pouyaehsaei/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeatedFigure/
Morteza Ghahremanian
Morteza Ghahremanian aka Tormoz started his work in the field of graphic design in the capital of Iran, Tehran. In 2018, after ten years of work in various media fields, he built his studio far from megacities to work more concentratedly and expanded it with a new approach towards digital artworks. It’s been three years since he entered new media arts, and most of his work is on A/V. He presented some of these experiences at TADAEX, SET Fest, Alice cph, Creative Code festivals, and ENGAGE 2021. Now he is working mostly on visual programming, real-time processing and also creating generative visual systems in various software like Touchdesigner, Houdini, and UnrealEngine.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tormozgh/
Behrooz Moosavi
Behrooz Moosavi is a musician, producer, DJ, and curator. He started his career in 2006 in Tehran and then continued his artistic practice in Berlin when he relocated to Germany. With a diverse range of experiences in the music scene, he has participated in many projects.
He was the co-founder of the electro/post-punk band Langtunes in Iran, one of the first music bands in the post-revolutionary Iran to tour around Europe, playing around 100 festivals between 2011 and 2016 and releasing several EPs and an album both in Iran and Germany.
He established his career as an event curator in Berlin, with different projects that he has either initiated or co-produced in the past years. Tehran Contemporary Sounds Festival , Borderless event series, the first edition of the Gate of Tehran Festival, are a few.
As a producer, he is interested and active in different fields of electronic music, from techno, ambient, electroacoustic sounds, to conceptual sound art. He has released his music on various international labels over the years.
Websites: www.behroozmoosavi.com
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/behrooz-moosavi
Kamyar Keramati
Originally hailing from Tehran, Iran, Kamyar Keramati (affectionately known as KK to his friends), grew up with less-obvious accessibility to the music scene, but this didn’t deter him. Instead, it inspired a strong drive to push boundaries.
After signing with the label ‘Where We Met’ and releasing his first EP, Kamyar went on to co-produce the ongoing label ‘Tonnovelle,’ with his partner-in-crime Arman Jalili (Vienna-based DJ). Tonnovelle’s debut release came in 2019 with the successful EP ‘Savushun’. Savushun established Tonnovolle as a fierce contender on the underground music scene. Kamyar relocated to Berlin in autumn 2016, where he steadily established a strong creative flow. He found the city to be a constant source of inspiration. Also, he teamed-up with fellow DJs Chicaiza and Patamamba, owners of ‘Kimchi Records’, to produce and distribute music. Since the pandemic, Kamyar has been operating as a solo production-machine from his home studio. He is currently working on his own solo imprint called Interactive View of Emotions.
Links
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kamyarkeramati
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kamyarkrmt/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamyarkeramati2
Bandcamp: https://kamyar1.bandcamp.com/releases
Monibi
Monibi is a club DJ, radio host, and music producer based in Berlin. Born in France, former Scottish resident, adopted German.
Not only do UK-centric bass music and house music often shine in Monibi’s DJ sets, she also takes inspiration from the old-school NY open-format school of DJing: she joins the dots of the dance music spectrum favouring vibe over genre dogmatism. Her versatile and forward-thinking DJ style was born in the kraut-techno-infused Cologne scene where she was playing at Gewölbe, Studio 672 / Jaki, Acephale, Golzheim, Cologne institution techno label Kompakt’s line-ups and C/O Pop. Since moving to Berlin her sets have been heard on CTM Vorspiel, Hör Berlin, WDR Cosmo, United We Stream x Arte. Through her radio endeavours she delivered strong DJ-sets championing percussive and underground music and leftfield sensitivities for Red Light Radio Amsterdam, WDR Cosmo, Rinse France, Radio 8000, Mutant Radio, to name a few. Her new radio home is THF radio Berlin where she now co-curates the radio program and contributes to community development projects. She hosts her monthly radio show “Etc w/Monibi”, featuring interviews of role-model artists and their non-male-heteronormative narratives of the electronic music scene.
She’s been awarded a Berlin Music Board scholarship in 2021 and is currently working on new music. She’s self-releasing her debut EP and subsequent single via the Cologne-based, experimental & kraut-loving label and artist collective baumusik. She’s remixed tracks for various artists.
Link
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/mawnyb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monibi_music/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/djmonibi
Baumusik (label): www.baumusik.de/artists/monibi
Anahita Shamsaei
Anahita Shamsaei is an underground techno DJ based in London. She was born in Sheffield and grew up in Tehran, Iran. Music has always been a crucial part of her life and her love for techno led her to teach herself everything she knows about this genre of music as well as developing her DJing skills.
“I have always loved techno music as I believe techno is so inclusive. I taught myself how to DJ in my room in Iran and I used to play along with my friends in underground parties in Tehran. From practicing on a daily basis in my room, I progressed to being able to DJ at many parties in London. My brain always syncs with techno music; therefore, I see my set mixes as manifestation of my brain process.”
Links
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/anahitashamsaei
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anahitashamsaei/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hoseinifard
Razieh Kooshki
Razieh Kooshki is an experimental visual artist from Iran, based in Linz, Austria. She has a background in graphic design, video art and 3D animation and has contributed to video games. Her main interest and works during the past 5 years has been Interactive Visual art and in general, Interactive artVahid Qaderi is a composer from Iran, based in Linz, Austria. In addition to his main profession, electronic music, he has a background in 3D animation, visual art, interactive art and video games.Razieh and Vahid have been collaborating together for over 10 years in many different fields, including VR, 3D Animation, video games and Audio Visual performances.
Their latest project was a Virtual reality project, In between Nodes, which was exhibited in Interface Culture exhibition, Ars electronica festival 2021, Linz, Austria.
Their latest AudioVisual performance was for the opening of Speculum Artium and Digital big screen festival in Slovenia.
Links
Instagram (Razieh): https://www.instagram.com/raziehkooshki/
Instagram (Vahid): https://www.instagram.com/vahidqaderi/
Nesa Azadikhah
From Tehran, Nesa Azadikhah is a musician, unfolding her practice as DJ, music producer, composer, and sound artist. She started with playing Tonbak and Daf at the age of sixteen in underground dance circles and is now one of Tehran’s most in-demand electronic music and sound artists.
She is the founder and managing director of Deep House Tehran – the leading Iranian underground house and electronic music magazine – and also promotes Iranian electronic musicians.
Links
Website (Deep House Tehran): http://deephousetehran.net/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nesaazadikhah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nesaazadikhah/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nesaazadikhahh
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