Ash Koosha
With the release of his widely-acclaimed second album, it’s been a big year for Tehran-born, London-based producer Ash Koosha.
Entitled I AKA I, the Ninja Tune-released sophomore LP was replete with Koosha’s signature high-sheen sonics, meticulously arranged into dynamic, otherworldly landscapes rich in depth and texture.
Whereas many might be tempted to revel in such a watershed- or use it as a clumsy segue- as an avowed futurist, Ash Koosha is already looking forwards, specifically to the year 2025. In a text accompanying the ‘2025 Mixtape’ he has prepared for Crack- comprised entirely of his own productions, many of them unreleased- he writes:
“2025 comes from my deep nostalgia for the future, it doesn’t see a utopian nor a dystopian future but it’s an emotional response to how humans might go through systematic change. Each variation, each melody comes from an imagination beyond the normative models of predicting the future. It is a non-conformist attempt to challenge sound design and melody, aiming to deliver a fictional sonic experience.
2025 is the year i will turn 40. For me that age is “the line” where every human crosses towards a new chapter, the beginning of an end. The real end. The ultimate problem.
2025 will be an important year… i’d probably be thinking about 2045 then.”
I AKA I features in Bleep’s Albums of the Year list, which you can read here
Artwork by Raana Dehghan
Ash Koosha
Like the music of many of his contemporaries, Ash Koosha’s sound exists in a world of collapsed boundaries. “I see the future as an amalgam of everything we once tried to define. Every line will blur, in gender, sexuality, genre, politics.” Koosha tells us. “We wont be able to hold on to the dogma that is ‘definition’.”
It’s an ambitious outlook, and one that fuels his output. The Iranian musician employs a destructive approach to production, similar to the likes of Arca or Angel-Ho, enhancing the physicality of his sound. This amorphous approach is driven by his intensely synesthetic mind. “Music is always presented as a wave line,” Koosha explains. “It’s as if it’s flat. That representation couldn’t be further from reality. Music in my mind has materiality and physicality. You can break it, throw it. I don’t control it obsessively, I direct the chaos.
