If your Berlin weekend still has a gap in it, how about a gig played on a weaving loom? Tehran Contemporary Sounds Festival has already kicked off its seventh edition with short-film screenings at Kino Moviemento on 10 and 11 November. However, from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 November, the festival moves to the Betonhalle at silent green in Wedding for three days of live performances and a group exhibition, with panel discussions on Saturday and Sunday. So if you missed the films, there’s still a whole weekend to get acquainted.
Start on Friday with Abdullah Miniawy, the Egyptian singer, poet and composer performing as part of the Mosaic Showcase. His voice is reason enough to go. There’s a sense of space in the way he holds a phrase, even when there’s plenty happening around him. Across his work, Sufi vocal traditions come into contact with jazz, electronics and spoken word. On the same bill, Swedish-Iranian artist Nadia Tehran, performing as Tehran, brings rap and experimental electronics into the room, while Gnäw pair Persian and Finnish instruments with synthesisers. It’s worth getting there early enough to hear how differently those acts use the same room.
About that loom. On Saturday, Saba Arat, Karlo Sono and Tarxun turn a forty-year-old one into an electronic instrument in Tezgah. Contact points on a half-woven kilim and microphones pick up the movements of weaving, giving each gesture an audible consequence. They call it ‘loom-metal’, a genre name that saves us all quite a bit of explaining. Sunday closes with a different pairing as composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki joins Kit Downes for a performance that brings turntables and organ together. Come earlier for Tehran-born, Berlin-based Ava Rasti, whose slowly shifting compositions make a case for giving a sound time to settle.
You can also spend an afternoon with Until Further Notice, the group show selected by Maryam Katan and Shaahin Peymani. In Surge, Mahshid Afzali revisits footage of Tehran celebrating Iran’s qualification for the 2006 World Cup, layering different accounts of public gatherings over the same images. Listen for the rush of water and see how easily it passes for the noise of a crowd. Mehdi Shiri’s I Walk Howsoever makes a shared gesture out of a single stride. Made during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, the animation took shape one frame at a time, with each contributor adding their own drawing to the walk cycle. The resulting wobble makes it possible to see the hands behind the movement.
The exhibition is free from 1 to 7 pm each day, and you can stay until midnight with a day pass. Give yourself a little time between the show and the first set. After an afternoon of listening to crowds, water and the sounds that slip between them, even the walk back upstairs might sound different.
