The 2 musicians had already played together once when Mariam came to play in Bristol in July 2024, improvising with Valentina Magaletti, it was a brilliant trio ! For the residency, Mariam and Dali will create new music as a duo, Mariam using her incredible skills to process live some of Dali’s vocals, creating for her, a basis to structure a new sonic dialogue.
Mariam Rezaei
Described by The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer. Working at the nexus of experimental new music, free improvisation, mutant club music and hip-hop, Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time. Her work has been described as “genuinely ground-breaking” (London Jazz News2022) and “high-velocity sonic surrealism” (The Guardian 2022). Praised by The Wire, Uncu tand Bandcamp Daily, her latest release FRACTURED (Heat Crimes) is one of The Quietus Cassette releases of 2024. In November 2022, she received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation #AwardsForArtists in recognition of her contribution to music composition. She previously led experimental arts projects TOPH, TUSK FRINGE and TUSK NORTH, and is writing a book on turntablism for Repeater. In addition to her solo work, Rezaei’s projects include a Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chávez (making their US premiere at Big Ears 2025), supergroup The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (with saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, trumpeter/electronics Gabriele Mitelli and drummer Lukas Koenig), and orchestral compositions with Matthew Shlomowitz (6 Scenes for Turntable and Orchestra). She recently performed Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music With guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe. Other Collaborations Include duos with Jennifer Walshe, Edward George, Farida Amadou, Valentina Magaletti, Lasse Marhaug, Evicshen, Lukas Koenig, Mette Rasmussen, Gabriele Mitelli, Okkyung Lee And Ali Robertson, Black Top with Pat Thomas, Orphy Robinson, Cleveland Watkiss and Leon Foster Thomas, and a quartet with DJ Sniff, Rex Chen and DJ SlowPitchSound at Taipei Biennial 2023
“Mariam Rezaei continues pushing the limits of her instrument on Fractured... it culminates inRezaei’s most expansive, nuanced work yet, moving from high energy frenzies into tender droning pieces...Fractured joyfully bamboozling. Elegantly contorted, playfully fierce, coherently scattered as it rips apart form and expectation.” - Daryl Worthington, Spools Out: The Best Cassettes of 2024,The Quietus
“A spellbinding set by turntablist Mariam Rezaei, whose fingers and hands area blur, darting back and forth across the decks so quickly it is as though she’d been sped up.” - Lucy Thraves, Out.Fest review The Wire, 2024
https://www.instagram.com/mariam_rezaei/
https://mariamrezaei.co.uk/
https://mariamrezaei.bandcamp.com/
https://heatcrimes.bandcamp.com/album/fractured
https://heatcrimes.bandcamp.com/album/bown
