Saba Alizadeh – Temple Of Hope

How can a sense of beauty be found amidst fear and cruelty? How can all the unspeakable be made audible, but also anger, hope, and an unyielding will to live?

With his third album Temple Of Hope, Iranian composer Saba Alizadeh has created a moving homage to the people of his homeland. He transforms the events during the “Woman Life Freedom” movement, as well as the struggles of the population in previous years, into poignant electro-acoustic music. Intensified by the vocals and lyrics of Andreas Spechtl, Sanam Maroufkhani, and Leila Rahimi. In his compositions, Saba Alizadeh combines the traditional string instrument Kamancheh with strings, modular synthesizers, and a no-input mixer. This results in a tense sound that explores the speechlessness and torn emotions between suffering, rebellion, and hope. Historical radio sequences ground his pieces in the culture and history of the country. The strong alienation and deconstruction of these acoustic elements, in turn, point to the incomprehensible – to existential upheavals and dissolution processes.

In his Temple Of Hope, courage and optimism gather. For while Saba Alizadeh’s multi-layered pieces may often seem like echoes of horror, they also unfold a deeply moving beauty.