The release of this mixtape was more than timely. When Iran erupted in nationwide protests after the murder of Jina (Mahsa) Amini by the state’s morality police, it represented the repressed underbelly of a country where music has a hard time under the thumb of the theocratic regime and therefore has all the more emancipatory potential. Parham Ghalamdar did little more than rip a few recordings of tipsy jam sessions from VHS tapes from the early noughties, but »Beautiful Apparitions« documents highly illegal gatherings, small private moments of resistance. It’s an instructive compilation, historical and yet topical.
Parham Ghalamdar – Beautiful Apparitions (2022)
