Tag: Leaving Records

DJ/Producer Maral Draws From Iranian Roots on Debut Full-Length

Photo Credit: Robb Klassen

Maral Mahmoudi grew up with Iranian music. The DJ/producer, who uses just her first name professionally, was raised primarily in Virginia, near Washington D.C., but spent fifth and sixth grade, as well as childhood summers, in Iran. “I I have this deep history with hearing the music at all times, blasting on TV,” she says by phone from her home in Los Angeles.

Later on, she would develop her own relationship with the music. Maral dug through her parents’ collection of tapes – they’re fans of Persian classical music – and learned more about the philosophy behind it, the connection to Sufism and the role that improvisation plays in it. “Everyone learns the same repertoire of music, which is this ancient repertoire that’s been passed down orally for centuries. Then, it’s up to you to play it in your own way and give it your own twist,” she explains. It’s similar, Maral notes, to the DJ mindset. “We’re all playing the same songs, but it’s how you play it that matters,” she says.

On Push, released through Leaving Records on October 14, Maral explores her passion for the music of Iran in an adventurous way. She plays with beats, samples and noisy electronics to bridge all of her influences, from Crass to Animal Collective to moombahton to David Lynch to the sounds she hears while walking around Los Angeles. Push also includes a track featuring Lee “Scratch” Perry, “Protect U,” which is based on an interview the dub legend did with online radio station Dublab, where Maral also has a show. She collaborated with Penny Rimbaud on “They Not They,” an opportunity that came about when Maral connected with the co-founder of the influential punk band Crass on Twitter. 

One of the instruments that you’ll hear on the album is the setar, an Iranian string instrument similar to a lute. As a teenager, Maral learned how to play setar; she played in a Persian classical ensemble as well. On Push, though, she samples setar masters. “Each master has their own specific way of playing the setar,” she explains. Maral wanted to showcase these differing styles. She also samples a Persian flute-like instrument called a ney. “I really love the way that I put distortion on it. It really sounds like you’re shredding on a guitar or something,” she says. 

Maral plays a little guitar on the album too, on the track “No Type,” but says that she doesn’t consider herself a professional musician. “I never really figured the music theory part out as well as I should have,” she says. “I let my intuition take me to wherever it wants to.” Intuition is crucial to Maral’s process. “I don’t really know how to use Ableton in the traditional sense either,” she says. “I just played around with it and figured out my own way of using [it].”

Maral was the kid known amongst friends for making mixed CDs. That eventually morphed into DJing with a cracked version of Ableton a friend passed her way. In college, at Virginia Tech, she fell into the same small music scene that would spawn the band Wild Nothing, DJing parties and mixing genres like indie and moombahton and putting her own twist on EDM tracks. Ultimately, DJing led to production, which she has been doing for about a decade. Last year, Maral released her first mixtape, Mahur Club, through Astral Plane Recordings. 

Much of Maral’s music stems from her enthusiasm for sharing the sounds that she finds with others. She recalls discovering the late Persian classical and pop singer Hayedeh back when she would dig through her parents’ collection. “I got really obsessed with Hayedeh and wanted to show people her music as much as I could and show people Persian music as much as I could,” she says.

After moving to Los Angeles, about six years ago, Maral had the opportunity to find more music from Iran. She says that’s impacted her work too. “In Virginia, we had a great Persian community. I learned about playing setar, playing all the classical instruments,” she says. “Then, coming to L.A. and having everything be more hyper-Iranian, because of the bigger Iranian population, has been amazing… Getting that chance to reconnect with the culture and having it be so prevalent in L.A. culture is really cool and, I think, important.”

In Westwood, the L.A. neighborhood that’s often associated with Iranian culture, she found CDs that would not just expand her collection of samples, but her musical knowledge as well. “I’m still learning,” she says. “There’s still stuff about Iranian music that I don’t know.” 

And, like her production process, Maral lets her intuition guide her digging. “Each time, picking out a random CD from the store, searching YouTube or going through my parents’ tapes, that all really informed me,” she says. “I do it all randomly and go towards whatever my intuition pulls me towards, but I’ve learned a lot in the past five years.”

Follow Maral on Instagram for ongoing updates.

Ami Dang Makes Meditations Mixtape to Harness the Healing Power of Music

In April, Ami Dang’s family held a gathering on Zoom as both an observance of the Sikh holiday Vaisakhi and a prayer session for her aunt and uncle, who had both contracted COVID-19. Dang’s mother requested that she sing a hymn.

“It was an especially troubling time because my aunt and uncle were getting sick,” the Baltimore-based singer, sitarist and producer explained by phone. The request to sing for her family, which Dang had done many times in the past, reminded her of the power of “healing music and religious music,” though sadly, her aunt later died of the illness.

Dang says that, in the beginning of the pandemic, she hadn’t quite known what role a musician should play during this challenging moment. “I get into the technicalities, or the day-to-day of the logistics of being a musician, whether that’s being on tour or whatever, and I forget sometimes how uplifting it is for other people,” she says.

As a result of this experience, Dang was moved to make Meditations Mixtape, Vol. 1, an EP released on May 22 via Leaving Records, comprised of four tracks that were recorded over the course of ten days. It was a project that she wanted to get out into this world quickly. “I think that everyone is feeling their own anxiety during this time,” she says. “That drove me to do these.”

Dang first learned music via the Sikh community and gurdwara, and went on to study sitar and then electronic music and technology. Over the course of three full-length albums, the most recent being last year’s Parted Plains, she has earned critical acclaim and fans for developing a sound that incorporates elements of both North Indian classical and experimental electronic music. Her process of creating music, she says, has evolved a lot over the years.

“I started out processing my sitar and vocals through a handful of guitar pedals and playing these live experimental, distorted, noisy, avant-garde synths,” she says. “I was doing some of those loops live and then moved into using a sampler. For a couple albums, my process started with samples, making patterns out of them and then using those patterns as the basis for the songs.” More recently Dang says she’s become increasingly interested in a variety of different kinds of synths.

With Meditations Mixtape, Vol. 1, though, Dang worked in a different way, given the current pandemic-related circumstances. “It was a very interesting exercise in using what I had at home,” says Dang. “When I work on music, there are a lot of different equations that I think about. I often think about the live aspect of it because I do love performing live. I typically perform live a lot and I’ve toured a lot, but, without any future touring in sight, I was thinking that I don’t have to worry about that right now.” Instead, she says of the EP,  “These are just songs for people to listen to on their own.”

On “Tension Tension Release,” released earlier in May, Dang sings the syllables “ni, ni, sa,” a solfége in Hindustani classical music, to draw listeners into a possible moment of meditation. “I wanted that piece to be all around the breath and finding those moments of tension and really leaning into them and then releasing them either when you sing sa,” she explains. “If people want to sing along with it that would be awesome, or just breathe along with it.”

She adds that, while she did make this particular piece with classical meditation in mind, she had a different kind of experience while singing “ni, ni, sa” as she cooked. “It was just the most relaxing and really grounding cooking experience that I had ever had,” she says. “I think it’s nice to find those moments in your daily life.”

“I don’t want to put out music that dictates how people should listen to it,” says Dang. “If you want to meditate full-on with them, that’s great, but, also, don’t beat yourself up for not being someone who meditates in the very classical sense of the word.”

Elsewhere, Dang says, she composed less for traditional meditation. On “Simplicity Mind Tool,” she incorporated lyrics from Sikh scripture that are meaningful to her. “In the scripture, it says specifically that focusing on the divine is the way to find peace and stability. I interpret that a little more widely. My interpretation of the divine is more about universal consciousness and collective understanding,” she explains. “My feeling is that if you focus on yourself, your spirit and the context of this collective – our community, rather than our stuff – that’s a way for people to find tranquility within ourselves.”

Follow Ami Dang on Facebook for ongoing updates.