Ash Koosha: "Harbour"
Singling out highlights from Iranian producer Ash Koosha‘s GUUD is a near-impossible task. Self-released earlier this year before an Olde English Spelling Bee re-release, Ashkan Kooshanejad’s compositions impress with a deftness and fluidity of sound exploration found in the works of Kuedo, Arca, and Lotic. The most accurate way to describe GUUD is perhaps also the least illuminating: it’s a singular, cohesive listening experience worth more than the sum of its parts. As it happens, Kooshanejad is far more interested in the detail than the “bigger picture”—GUUD is formed from “nano-composition”, where fractal patterns found in the minutiae of sound waves are observed and re-purposed. The results are extremely approachable and fascinatingly alien at the same time.
“Harbour” is the thrilling album closer, its dynamic of playful rhythms and unhinged impulses, familiar and foreign, are symptomatic of the album overall. You listen as far into it as you feel like; those organic-sounding hand-drums expose the quirky pauses and nuances in their loops under scrutiny, and it’s revealed that the initially charming keyboard melody moonlights as cavernous water droplets (or is it vice-versa?). Warm familiarity tugs an ear one way whilst the exciting prospect of adventure pulls the other ear, dizzying the head-space in between. Disaster strikes harmony like a hurricane as “Harbour” is swept into emphatic strings and fragmented synths. It’s hard to tear the senses away from nature’s beauty and chaos, even if it is artificial. It’s as if the planet’s reset button is inevitably pressed, and the Earth should (hopefully) keep spinning.
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