Ash Koosha – conducting electronic destruction from Iran
Ashkan Kooshanejad, also known as Ash Koosha, is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer and film director living in London. He was also duo Take It Easy Hospital’s singer. He played the lead role in a Cannes jury-award-winning film No One Knows About Persian Cats. Last year, he released his debut GUUD and will introduce it to Pohoda audience.
30. March 2016
Ash Koosha studied at the Tehran Conservatory of Music. Ten years ago, he formed a rock band named Font. At their first gig, they managed to draw a crowd of 600 to a Tehran suburban villa. What they also drew was the attention of police officers, who were abseiling in from helicopters. It was like a scene taken from an ‘80s action movie. The band as well as 200 attendees got arrested. Not long after this incident, Ash Koosha formed Take It Easy Hospital, an electro pop band. Director Bahnman Ghobadi made a film No One Knows About Persian Cats about the Iranian underground music scene and band’s own experiences. On the one hand, the film ended up being a success at Cannes. On the other hand, the band’s drummer and film co-writer got arrested in Iran. The band then decided to seek asylum in the UK.
When still studying at conservatory, Ash Koosha was more interested in the physical aspect of music and sounds than in instruments and form. This is probably linked to his fascination with quantum physics and nanotechnology. The thirty-year-old musician released his electronic debut GUUD a year ago. As Pitchfork puts it, “you wouldn’t guess that he had a past as a rebel rocker—much less as a student of Persian classical music.” His music is compared to the likes of Flying Lotus, Gobby or Arca. However, Kooshanejad says that when working on the album, he mostly listened to Vivaldi, Wagner and Chopin. Instead of piano, violins and brass, he was working with abstract sounds. Album GUUD is basically word Good without the circular geometric perfection of the letter O. This philosophical-physical principle is also true for his elaborated “conducting sound destruction.”
Photo: Ozge Cone