Iranian DnB Ditty Has Hiatus’ Heart
British-Iranian producer Hiatus is a month away from unleashing his fifth album Is, and will release another snippet with the single ‘Lo (feat. Malahat Haddad)’ today, via Lucky Thunder.
‘Lo’ fuses DnB with classical Iranian music in what feels like a world first. The track wastes no time
getting going, with scattershot beats and growling bass dropping over a haunting piano loop, soon joined by the mournful refrain of Faraz Eshghi Sahraei’s kamancheh (a traditional Iranian string instrument). The second half introduces Malahat’s otherworldly Persian vocals, resulting in a dramatic climax for the album, before the more ethereal resolution of the final track.
“DnB was what got me into electronic music,” says Hiatus. “I spent my teens and early 20s raving and DJing at house parties. But it has very few followers in Iran, and I was nervous about asking Malahat to sing on this one, because it’s so far from her musical world. But when I played her the track she loved it, and was singing along before it finished. The result is easily my favourite of our collaborations so far. Maybe it’ll even turn a few Iranians onto the form.”
Is will be the fifth album from Hiatus, and it’s his most joyful record to date, something he attributes in part to performing his first live shows in ten years, which reminded him of the power of music to connect us to something timeless. In some ways, the new record is a natural follow-up to the 2021’s Distancer: once again it features multiple collaborations with the Iranian singer Malahat Haddad, while Faraz Eshghi Sahraei’s calligraphic kamancheh weaves throughout every track. Both records fuse western classical and electronic forms with the microtonal Persian music system known as the Dastgāh, something that has become a hallmark of Hiatus’ sound. But while Distancer was eerie and occasionally mournful – written during the pandemic, and reflecting the grief and isolation of that period – Is is characterised by a sense of euphoria, celebrating the cosmic joy that can be found only in the present moment.
Hiatus is the moniker of British-Iranian producer Cyrus Shahrad, who has been channelling his Iranian heritage through electronic music since 2005, after rediscovering his father’s record collection while working as a journalist in Tehran. Since then, his releases have featured samples from old Iranian records, an Iranian nursery rhyme re-scored for a choir, even his father reciting ancient Persian poetry. Kicking things off in 2010 with his debut album Ghost Notes, Hiatus’ records have been consistently met with critical acclaim. Tracks like ‘River’ and ‘Insurrection’ have received mainstream radio play, the latter voted single of the week on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable on BBC Radio 6 Music; he has been profiled by the New York Times, written articles about his creative process for the Guardian, and We Can Be Ghosts Now won Best Animation at the 2013 UK Music Video Awards. With more than 30 million Spotify streams, Cyrus has grown a devoted following through his ability to reflect on disparate pasts and create messages that feel both foreign and familiar.
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