Ixuol - Abstraction In High Fidelity (2019)

?Abstraction in High Fidelity? is the new album by Ixuol (Arastoo Darakshan), an artist whose complex electronic work draws inspiration from western composition and traditional Persian music, specifically the micro tuning of the Santur and Ghanoon instruments. The music, while entirely synthesised, shows an ear for beautifully subtle timbral and performative changes, blurring the lines ever more of the computer as an instrument. The tracks compiling the A side of ?Abstraction?? are selected and arranged cohesively with their focus on melodic phrases and a warmer more introspective aesthetic. Side B is colder, more enigmatic and directly synthetic in quality. It's barren sound design and dislocating rhythmic ideas force away the embracing warmth of the previous side making this an album of binary feeling. Ixuol admits that his music does not directly reference any current social or international situations but that such feelings do operate subconsciously. It is this obfuscation of information, emotion and passion behind the blinking light of the screen which is perhaps the driving force here. A music both inspiring, beautiful and occasionally harrowing, saturated within a subconscious of intelligent feeling for our world.