Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, claimed in his astonishing hypothesis that our thoughts and memories are all a result of a system of neural synapses and pathways in our brain. Our minds and our bodies are molecules ordered in a certain composition that grants us with our identities. Ash Koosha, an experimental, electronic artist born in Tehran and now based in London, has released an album on NewHive that also interacts with this idea that on a molecular level, everything is broken down into just bits of stuff, even music.
GUUD contains 16 explorative and strange tracks, each with a visual accompaniment that can be viewed on Olde English Spelling Bee’s NewHive. If you prefer to have a solely auditory experience, you can listen to it on Koosha’s Bandcamp. However, I found that the visuals enhanced my experience of his album and gave me something to anchor both his glitchy and cavernous sounds to. For songs like “Could” and the title track “GUUD”, Koosha presents an interplay of synthetic and natural sounds that are disconcerting yet enjoyable. Harsh, computerized noises weave in and out of sweet melodic synth leads. There are sounds that have a cold, digital feel, yet resemble familiar sounds of a squeaking door hinge or a tube of paint being squeezed out. These sonic ink blot tests are paired with pixelated moving images of melting sculptures, helicopters, and moving gears.
Koosha states that he’s interested in nano-composition and “creating a composition, based on the sonic behaviour of fractal patterns that exist within a stretched or rescaled sound wave.” His fascination with deconstructing sound has resulted in a mesmerizing patchwork of warped and unorthodox songs turned inside-out.
