Name: Saba Alizadeh
Occupation: Composer
Nationality: Iranian
Current release: Saba Alizadeh's latest single "Nafir (Clamour)" is out via 30M. His current full-length I May Never See You Again is available via the same label as well.
Recommendations: I have enjoyed this incredible album by Seth Graham and More Eaze “The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid” which I also suggest for your readers to listen to. The other suggestion for listening I have is NeyNava by Hossein Alizadeh.

If you enjoyed this Saba Alizadeh interview and would like to know more about his music, visit him on Instagram, twitter, and Soundcloud.  



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

It varies for every piece, but it could be from a chant of protesters, a field recording I did in a jungle, a title I was thinking of for a track or an image I took with my phone or just a simple melody I was playing recording on my  Kamancheh.

Mostly social events have been the main source. I think it’s because they're in the air that we breathe everyday and there is no way around them.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

Each track has a different story. For instance, in some tracks the composition  process was planned out like “’Silences inbetween."



For this piece, I had to split out the silence part of the speeches of the third Reich key figures speeches with a little bit pitched material left in them, then play them back in a water reservoir in Berlin which was used by Nazis. For the last step, i then started composing with them. I had no Idea what it was going to sound like after composition.

Another example is one of my favorite pieces “Touch” which is a pure improvised piece with Andreas Spechtl on vocals and electronics and me on Kamancheh.



The way this piece happened was probably days of friendship and talks about art and life in general and the idea of improvisation. All of a sudden we jumped into his studio and this track happened.

On “Only Hope Breaks The Dark Waves” almost everything was planned ahead and there was no room for chance or improvisation or signal processing which I could turn into improvisation.



Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Usually my studio is set up, but sometimes, if I should need to work with my No-input mixer or modular synth, I have to move things around and create a different set up. This could be due to the size of the room and also because of the routing.

For film music it is usually required to do an early version of some sort. But sometimes I also do a few versions of my tracks depending on the orchestration of them.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Creation never calls, therefore you might be in a taxi, among friends or walking and it could occur since your mind has been occupied with that subject. But if I’m in my studio I do a few things before I start which you might call a ritual or routine.

First I clean up and sort everything. I have a few gem stones that have to be placed in a specific order. I draw my thick curtains to make my room dark but not completely pitch black. I have a picture of my Sensei Mark Trayle - who was one of my first mentors (he is no longer with us) that introduced me to the experimental world and gave me the courage to dive into it - and I send him my salute and kick off my session.

I always start with the first notion I had in mind for the piece, either its a recorded sound a part for an instrument. Most of the times I don’t deal with scores unless I am writing for other musicians to play, therefore I have the structure in my head. That is why the early stages of the music usually sounds nothing like music. But since I know the final picture I keep on moving. It is important to keep the integrity throughout the piece and the paste.

I always do the mixing. For me, this is like making a staged photograph. I have to put everything were it belongs in terms of perspective, light, colors. Also, since I’m staging everything, I will also be able to place the Ponctum ("those features of a photograph that seem to produce or convey a meaning without invoking any recognizable symbolic system," according to Education Museum) perfectly as well (as Roland Barthes would say) which is the composer's job.

I believe I do keep a strict control over the process but at the same time I am also open for unplanned events that happen through the process or the material that you gain through improvisation.

I come from a background of improvisation. To be more exact I come from a musical family. Hossein Alizadeh, my father whom is considered one of the most well known Avant Gard Iranian musicians, is rooted in tradition but thinking forward. I guess growing up around him also made me think differently about the frequencies and the methods I use for composing my music which is somehow hard to categorize in a single genre.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I always let a piece  lie for a few weeks and then go over it again, after listening to it in different systems like my car or my friends' hifi systems.

I probably go over a piece two to three times or more depending on the piece.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

The emptiness that follows after you have created an album or have given a tour is one of the downsides of being musician. But at the same time, metaphorically speaking, it is like giving birth. You have to face the depression afterwards and each person has their own way of dealing with it.
I personally get back into the practice.

To return to the state of creativity for me always there has to be a question, a concept, an image that I have to make a piece about that is how I get motivated.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

This is a very tricky question.

I think we can not generalize music here in this question. But I believe that a musician is manifesting their thoughts into moving air which are frequencies by organizing sounds as much as that sounds complicating it could look as simple as someone making coffee.

But keep in mind that the composer is doing so out of thin air but the coffee been already been in existence for you to grind