Tehran-based electronic producer / musician Hesam Ohadi originally comes from a musical background as a rock / metal drummer, but from 2006 onwards he became increasingly interested in electronic music, leading to the creation of his Idlefon alias to soundtrack Arash Radika’s animated short film ‘The Radiologist’s Room’ in 2009. Four years on from his preceding split album alongside fellow Iranian electronic artists Umchunga ‘Spotty Surfaces’ and parallel to his ongoing work as a member of post-rock band Photomat, this latest release on Tympanik Audio ‘Intensive Collectivity Known As City’ finally offers up his solo debut album as Idlefon. While the title suggests the energy of some seething metropolis though, there’s a slow, almost meditative ebb and flow to the eleven tracks collected here, which see Ohadi blending blurred droning ambience with glitchy fluttering IDM-based rhythms.
‘Kuchinawa’ opens things with slow glacial droning harmonics slowly bleeding out into the distance before crackling rhythmic textures and pulsing bass tones rise into the foreground, the background atmospheres billowing like sand dunes in slow motion as fragments of a cut-up conversation briefly snap into focus. If the aforementioned track conjures up a sense of effortless oceanic drift, ‘Where Voices Vanish’ sees a rattling rhythmic groove occupying the centre stage as slow, vaguely hip hop-tinged beats lock down around the edges alongside subtle rippling electronics, sampled childrens’ conversations and cold brooding synth pads as delicate harmonic tones twinkle in the foreground. Elsewhere, ‘Ikigami’ offers up a sidestep into darker territory, as scraped fractured beats tread slowly against an ebbing backdrop of elegant bass chords and vocoded textures, before ‘Pickers Of Empty Cocoons’ sees the treated vocals of Umchunga’s Nima Pourkarimi providing one of the few immediately tangible human presences to be found amongst this deeply introspective and lulling collection. A strong debut album from Idlefon that certainly highlights the more delicate IDM / glitch side of the Tympanik Audio label.
