Few dare to traverse the hazardous and duplicitous terrain of London’s underground scene — even fewer emerge from it unscathed, let alone with their artistic integrity intact. Yet, through Control, Azadi.mp3 establishes themselves as an artist who has not only navigated the labyrinth but has thrived within it. Self-released under Zadi World, The Iranian erudite's new collection strips away some of the maximalism replete within their 2019 release Summer in the Crypt, revealing a raw examination of perfectionism and power through distorted Santour samples and acidic post-punk cadences.
The result is a frenetic, challenging, yet ultimately mesmerising voyage through the artist's psyche of cultural identity and late-stage capitalist anxieties intertwining in a claustrophobic dance of tension and catharsis.
A noteworthy entity within London's DJ scene, Azadi.mp3’s creative portfolio narrates a multifaceted exploration of performance work, such as their starring role in Channel 4's We Are Lady Parts, alongside teaching Ableton production. Juliette Motamed is the polymath behind the Azadi.mp3 alias, which itself encapsulates the project's core ethos — Azadi meaning freedom in Farsi, juxtaposed against the compressed, digital format of .mp3. This deliberate tension between liberation and constraint mirrors the artist's exploration of cultural dissonance in the digital age, alluding to the existential contradictions Global majority artists specifically face when navigating ostensibly hybrid existences in both physical and digital spaces.
With Ableton and an SP404 as faithful companions, Control stands as Azadi.mp3's bold declaration of selfhood, and an evolution from Summer in the Crypt's vacillating experimentation to a definitively assured vulnerability. In a London scene where SWANA representation continues to thrive through collectives like Habibti Nation and events like Hishek Bishek, Azadi.mp3 arises as a most potent figurehead within the Big Smoke's evolving sonic landscape.
First off congrats releasing such a phenomenal and refreshingly unique EP here with Control! How have you been feeling in the weeks leading up to the release?
Thanks man. It’s been a long time coming so I’m excited and curious. I’m mostly relieved.
Your music often creates immersive worlds that listeners can inhabit, and there are few songs I have heard of late that viscerally embody the feeling of being lost within a sea of sweaty bodies in an industrial underground warehouse quite like the EP’s final track Cruel Goodbyes. Could you speak a bit about the production techniques you use to conjure such mutational soundscapes? What's your go-to piece of gear for achieving that signature Azadi.mp3 sound?
Wow. I love this question. When I first started out producing I was making a lot of 4 bar loops and sampling stuff, so some of those tendencies make their way into Cruel Goodbyes. I’m thinking about the Santour samples specifically. If I’m being real, most of this EP I just made internally with Ableton and some relatively basic plug-ins: like, all the bent 808s and subby sounds, I made on Maschine. I don’t actually think you need that much gear to get started on making stuff. The more proficient you get at the software the rest just falls into place. As for gear I like and use a lot, I always come back to my SP404 because it’s such a multipurpose tool for both live and recording. There’s so much room to mess around — it’s fun.
More recently, I think DJing has grabbed the collar of my production style’s t-shirt more and more. I’ve played a lot of shows just me and some decks, and I’m increasingly interested in using them as an instrument to create new sounds and sampling those to create new one-shots and soundscapes. I think I want to integrate that kind of elasticity you get with on the decks into my next releases.
More recently, I think DJing has grabbed the collar of my production style’s t-shirt more and more. I’ve played a lot of shows just me and some decks, and I’m increasingly interested in using them as an instrument to create new sounds and sampling those to create new one-shots and soundscapes. I think I want to integrate that kind of elasticity you get with on the decks into my next releases.
I feel the evolution from Summer in the Crypt's theatrical maximalism to Control’s more focused intensity suggests that taking control of the production process has led to a more deliberate and personal sonic vernacular. You mentioned in an interview with Azeema back in 2021 that you began teaching yourself music production as a response to the lack of autonomy you felt working with male producers who didn't understand your vision or allow you to explore the sounds you wanted. How has taking control of your own production process influenced your artistic evolution and the themes explored in Control?
From the moment I started making music for myself and putting it out it was always this wrestle with control, because I’d been in so many situations where I felt like I didn't have any. Even with Summer in the Crypt, which was also all self-produced, I think I still had this defensiveness that I wasn’t aware of then. Making Control was me really acknowledging that the enemy I was wrestling with was the beast of my own perfectionism. That inevitably ended up sounding darker and more introspective because I was finally being honest with myself and taking some responsibility for my life. I think it’s also why it took me so long to put out, it was a hard look at myself.
I remember going to A.G’s house one time to hang and chill after I'd decided that I was definitely putting music out, and I ended up playing her the whole EP. Her reaction really moved me in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and she said that I should call it Control after the track, because that was clearly what the whole thing was about. I kind of went silent after that. It was one of those moments of grace where I realised I was finally putting something to bed. It’s a blessing, you know. I’m so grateful that those feelings propelled me to teach myself to produce, but I don’t feel like I need to prove myself as much anymore. It’s a freeing feeling. What’s exciting to me now is collaborating with people I think are cool and giggling and having fun and not taking my shit so seriously.
I remember going to A.G’s house one time to hang and chill after I'd decided that I was definitely putting music out, and I ended up playing her the whole EP. Her reaction really moved me in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and she said that I should call it Control after the track, because that was clearly what the whole thing was about. I kind of went silent after that. It was one of those moments of grace where I realised I was finally putting something to bed. It’s a blessing, you know. I’m so grateful that those feelings propelled me to teach myself to produce, but I don’t feel like I need to prove myself as much anymore. It’s a freeing feeling. What’s exciting to me now is collaborating with people I think are cool and giggling and having fun and not taking my shit so seriously.
Another way this EP presents an evolution from your debut is its exploration of vulnerability beneath constructed personas, particularly in the profound confessionals present in the penultimate hypnogenic Too Much. How did you find the experience of portraying a more vulnerable side to yourself in this work? Do you have any fears of how this elevated level of raw vulnerability will be perceived by all listeners?
Of course! I’m human. There’s something so embarrassing about being honest with your emotions that it almost horseshoes back to being funny again. All that to say: Let he who has never before crashed out cast the first stone. Making music is vulnerable, there’s no way around it. It still feels like you’re bellowing into the yawning abyss. It’s silly cause I’ve just finished the run of this play (Wish You Were Here) and I was on stage basically sobbing every night to crowds of strangers, and somehow stuff like this makes me feel way more exposed. I’ve always been a lover of a wistful song, and I think it’s a cop-out not to be honest. What’s the point otherwise? Being a person is weird and embarrassing and painful and it’s those things that also make life worth living, and it’s those snapshots that end up tessellating to create a song. So yeah, it’s scary, but I like doing scary things and putting it all on the line. I’d rather be scared than bored. Or scared than regretful.
Your role in the groundbreaking Channel 4 sitcom We Are Lady Parts represents another facet of your artistic expression. The show's DNA seems to share kinship with underground movements like Taqwacore and Aki Nawaz’s Fun-Da-Mental. How did these parallel histories of SWANA British musical resistance influence your portrayal of Ayesha, a lesbian punk drummer, particularly in scenes where the personal and political collide?
Being a part of We Are Lady Parts was really beautiful and it’s a job that is so close to my heart. The cast, the crew, the whole team, it’s just so special. It was kind of a spooky full circle moment for me: I grew up listening to Poly Styrene and X Ray Spex, Siouxie Sioux, The Slits, Bikini Kill, Joan Jett and the like, which then morphed into seeking out the music of bands like Aurat and Taqbir. It felt mental to read a script about a fictional band, also in that pioneering punk space, treading those same footsteps, and for that story to be set in London? Insane. There is something so beautifully defiant, intense, and complex about these women’s stories and I really wanted to be careful to show that journey in all its shades with Ayesha. When we were making the show we were so conscious that although the show is about a fictional band, these stories exist, have existed and will continue to exist beyond us, and that we were just reflecting a reality back to the world.
In your self-directed music video for Control you present a brilliantly absurdist critique of late-stage capitalist malaise that’s part Park Chan-wook-esque part Spaced. The salaryman character in your video work presents a particularly powerful metaphor for systematic constraint. Could you discuss how your experience in television and film has influenced your approach to creating this multi-layered narrative?
This is both a lovely question and delicious compliment, so thank you. It’s been interesting working in film and TV and then going back to shoot a music video. I think it’s honed my attention to detail, but practically it’s useful seeing how things work both in front of and behind the camera. I’m always watching people on set because I’m nosy and I’m dying to know what the fuck is going on. It’s so fun. Honestly, I'm just very particular and I know what I like and what I don’t. That, and trusting the people I work with, helps when it comes down to making quick decisions; be that acting in front of camera, or refining behind.
From your vampire persona in Summer in the Crypt to Ayesha's Uber-driving punk drummer, you've consistently explored characters who exist in twilight spaces between worlds. Is this enervate salaryman character the persona you have created that in a similar vein exemplifies the world of Control?
Yeah definitely. The Salaryman was a character that came to me over months, as I was thinking how best to represent the archetype of being in or losing control. I liked the idea of this regimented existence where the lines between desire, duty and obligation blur. In the video he’s trapped in the amber of his daily routine, endlessly repeating it as his world falls apart around him. There’s always the sense that there’s an external force influencing him, but you never see it — we’re never quite sure if he’s an essential cog in the machine or ultimately disposable. All we see are the four walls that cocoon his entire life: where he eats, he works, he sleeps. There’s this rank symbiosis with the environment. It’s hard to tell whether he is projecting his internal world out, or whether he is at the mercy of something.
I’ve felt stuck like that before, where I can’t tell if I’m making my life harder or if things are actually cooked. I wanted to reflect what happens when idiosyncrasies get eroded down and numbed away and the only option for self protection seems to be self effacement. How that can feel like a soothing balm as well as a borderline to rage against. I guess what I really wanted to reflect is what happens when time elapses and things go wrong and that facade is stretched thin to its limits. I wanted to explore what peeks out from between the cracks of holding it all together by force, what might dart away in the corners of your vision before you get a good look.
I’ve felt stuck like that before, where I can’t tell if I’m making my life harder or if things are actually cooked. I wanted to reflect what happens when idiosyncrasies get eroded down and numbed away and the only option for self protection seems to be self effacement. How that can feel like a soothing balm as well as a borderline to rage against. I guess what I really wanted to reflect is what happens when time elapses and things go wrong and that facade is stretched thin to its limits. I wanted to explore what peeks out from between the cracks of holding it all together by force, what might dart away in the corners of your vision before you get a good look.
The production process for the Control video saw you work with immensely talented artists within your close circle, such as digital artists Dian Joy and Arna Beth and videographers zmaraks and Ashley Rommelrath. What was it like working with these creators?
I think doing stuff DIY usually comes from necessity, but it’s a pleasure that I get to do that with friends. It’s nice because it feels like there’s always this back and forth between us. Dian Joy (who produced the Control video) has an incredible exhibition on right now at Arebyte called Alexandria’s Genesis. In a hilarious act of reciprocity, Dian got me to wear the weirdest outfit of all time and to do some acting stuff on their holographic fans. I find stuff like that so funny. Like, we’re making art but we’re also playing an extended game of phone a friend.
It’s one of those things that I’ll never take for granted because it feels insane for people you rate and respect to fuck with your crazy ideas. Ash I’d worked with before and he absolutely bodied the Nazar video, and I’d seen zmaraks’ work and knew they’d have the eye for detail and chaos I was looking for. Alexandre Tarek was instrumental to the ever-degrading set design and spooky props, and Arna Beth created such a beautiful keyhole into the Salaryman’s external world through the glitchy light window. Gina Corrieri is also such a talented stylist and designer and just completely understood the assignment with minimal instruction. Even the cover art ended up being kind of happenstancey, the photographer dropped out of the shoot last minute so I called Brian Nasty to come halfway through to take pictures, and they ate.
I think there’s something special that happens especially when people intrinsically understand the culture and context you’re from. You don’t have to explain yourself anymore. I find that quality shines specifically with all the work I’ve done over the years with nil00, one of my closest friends and longtime collaborators. nil00 is all over this project, and their editing style was so perfect for this video that it felt like a language. They edited both the Control and Cruel Goodbyes videos as well as co-producing the song Too Cute alongside Cajm and I.
It’s one of those things that I’ll never take for granted because it feels insane for people you rate and respect to fuck with your crazy ideas. Ash I’d worked with before and he absolutely bodied the Nazar video, and I’d seen zmaraks’ work and knew they’d have the eye for detail and chaos I was looking for. Alexandre Tarek was instrumental to the ever-degrading set design and spooky props, and Arna Beth created such a beautiful keyhole into the Salaryman’s external world through the glitchy light window. Gina Corrieri is also such a talented stylist and designer and just completely understood the assignment with minimal instruction. Even the cover art ended up being kind of happenstancey, the photographer dropped out of the shoot last minute so I called Brian Nasty to come halfway through to take pictures, and they ate.
I think there’s something special that happens especially when people intrinsically understand the culture and context you’re from. You don’t have to explain yourself anymore. I find that quality shines specifically with all the work I’ve done over the years with nil00, one of my closest friends and longtime collaborators. nil00 is all over this project, and their editing style was so perfect for this video that it felt like a language. They edited both the Control and Cruel Goodbyes videos as well as co-producing the song Too Cute alongside Cajm and I.
A prodigious turntablist, your DJ sets are renowned in the London scene for their sublime energy. How do you find the experience of mixing and performing as opposed to producing? How does the Azadi.mp3 live setup transform their studio complexities into the club night realm?
Thanks. I had been producing for ages before I had even considered DJing and I kind of ended up falling in love with it. I still have so much to learn but think I can credit DJing to letting go of my weird rigid standards of personal perfection and just being present. DJing is like the other half of the heart shaped best friendship necklace of producing. I really love it actually. A friend of mine ages ago was talking about the immediacy of DJing and how you download some songs and immediately connect to your audience, and that really stuck with me. It somehow has the generosity and the immediacy that acting on stage can have, alongside the quick problem-solving and needing to be present that is an antidote to being super cerebral. It feels rare and exciting to be able to literally feel the air of the room shift when people fuck with a song. It’s great. I can’t wait to play more sets and to make some Zadiflips to play out.
With the rise of SWANA events in London such as Hishek Bishek's monthly gatherings to The Middle of Nowhere Party, are you excited about the current state of SWANA representation in the London club scene? Would you say collectives such as Habibti Nation will help pave the way for more of the SWANA and queer sound to inhabit the capital’s nightlife and cultural spaces in the near future?
I’m beyond excited. It feels really beautiful to be a part of something that has been bubbling away under the surface for so long. From Bledi Party, to Habibti Nation, to Makaan, Haft Sins, and to Laylit and Yalla Party coming to London. It’s amazing that so many of us are demanding to hear our own sound back from this city, and that there’s an appetite for it. It’s heartening, because we’ve always been here, but especially now, at a time where the crackdown on nightlife is getting worse in London. I think it’s all part of a bigger thing, beyond just nightlife. I’m beyond proud and grateful to see so many SWANA Art Collectives, workshops and publications spring up in London, to see so many different opportunities for mutual care, organising and fundraising. I think this is all the beginning of something really important and special.
I am in awe of your ability to juggle your work as an actor with your music production, DJing, and even as an Ableton instructor. What's your secret to maintaining distinct creative headspaces for each project?
I think a lot of the time these skills end up feeding into each other and being pretty interchangeable. When you’re trying to make things work independently and running it all yourself, you end up saying yes to more things, because saying no means not getting anything off the ground. It’s one of those things that’s born of necessity, but ends up expanding your own idea of what’s possible and what you’re capable of.
I love the navigation through your personal localities on the track Meteor City from Willesden Green to Kentish Town. It reminded me of the guide you made for Trippin recommending the best places to eat in North London, all of which genuinely sound like such great spots! Outside of food, are there any other gems in North London that you’d like to shout out here?
Esfahan Supermarket in North Finchley, this one particular tree in Hampstead Heath, Rowans [Bowling] in Finsbury Park, the Windermere in South Kenton, and Wood Green Cineworld.
Looking ahead, what can we expect from Azadi.mp3 in the future?
More music, more remixes, more visuals, more collaborations, more fun!
