Sote
Ata Ebtekar aka Sote is an electronic music composer and sound artist based in Tehran, Iran.
In the past 20 plus years Sote has published his work with such established music labels like Warp, Sub Rosa, Opal Tapes, Morphine, Digitalis and Repitch among others. Global cultural exposure through transmigration has been a significant stimulant for his aesthetics. Sote's goal is to create unique and timeless pieces of music that are not available anywhere except in his own mind.
Sote's compositions and multi-channel installations are sonic tales synchronously decoding and regenerating customary patterns of thought in nature; aural designs of crisis and harmony where contempo aligns with folklore, orchestrating an artificial saga with a variety of illuminations and analyses. His passion for all music, especially electronic music, and his extensive involvement in sound art and the world of academia have led Sote to compose in a wide variety of musical styles. His works show a strong emphasis on electro-acoustic techniques, microtonal systems and polyrhythmic motifs.
The artist has a firm conviction that rules and formulas must be deconstructed and rethought; hence he alters musical modal codes from their original tonality and rhythm (tradition) to achieve vivid synthetic soundscapes. In order to accomplish dynamic expression on electronics, gesture and texture, he employs various synthesis languages and DSP techniques in a modular sound environment.
Sote's current work deals with continuing analysis and execution of beatless electronic music with a maximalist musical aesthetic. The focal rhythmic element is achieved with programmed pitched sounds instead of conventional percussive elements via various synthesis methods. These aural components that survive assorted filters, form harmonies and melodies that interchangeably act as the structural groove. The outcome is at intervals polyrhythmic aiming for a Common-time feel and vice versa. Interwoven patterns and complex ornaments within a pliant grid form a diametric functionality of loop-based non-hypnotic music, and require active listening.