Rituals of the Last Dawn by Saba Alizadeh

For fans of Širom, A Silver Mt. Zion, Tony Conrad, the many musical contributions of John Cale, and the unstoppable beauty of the sunrise amidst all our human-generated hell, Rituals of the Last Dawn by Saba Alizadeh fuses Iranian traditional folk music with the contemporary avant-garde to meet the impossible gravity of the current moment. Taking a step back from his typically more electronic sound, Alizadeh instead opts for a largely acoustic and improvisational approach here, using synths sparingly to introduce a dark magnitude which hangs over the entire landscape. This enormous abyss represents current material conditions, a war so destructive and pointless as to rival a natural disaster in its moral absurdity and pure terror. Underneath, the people face their new reality in the way all struggling people face everything, by banding together and taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges day by day, hour by hour. These traditional sounds welcome the rising sun, celebrating the small everyday wonders of life with the understanding that the next sunrise never comes guaranteed.