STREAM // PURCHASE! 

As part of the release of Saint Abdullah’s Ta Tash on Boomarm Nation, we decided to do away with a press release and instead keep things real by simply having a conversation.

I sent Saint Abdullah three questions about the sounds, visuals, and stories behind the project that I was curious to learn more about. The following pages capture our very candid conversation.

Thank you for your support, Jesse

Boomarm016 In conversation, Saint Abdullah x Boomarm Nation

Q1: Peace brothers, I’m listening to Vivid Persian Dreams, the A side of the new 12”, my back door is open here at Boomarm HQ and the sun is shining in from the garden. These sounds are consuming me, as if I am sitting in another place entirely; its warm, like a landscape, its bright and the air is hot. The energy in these sounds, the pulse and howls of distant voices, these hand claps, so shrill and with purpose, like a parade of protest passing by, the colors are twinkling in my ears like a precious stone in the sun.

Yet I hear a heaviness, a longing that keeps pulling at my heart. These sounds. Man, So heavy, the build from a gentle cascade, to a thundering storm, its warm, energizing and mysterious, yet totally visceral and familiar, in the way it all coalesces around the warm drip of the drum. Can you tell me about the sounds I’m hearing?

A1: Greetings, from the corner of Broadway and Madison, tucked in between the neighborhoods of Bedstuy and Bushwick, here in Brooklyn, NY. This sun isn’t shining, nor do I have my back door open. I don’t have a back door – just one door, and it’s at the side of the apartment. It’s definitely closed, although unlocked; A Canadian compromise.

We certainly couldn’t describe them with such detail. These are the moments where the ESL card comes in handy. Nevertheless, let’s give it a try— These sounds are accidents. There was intent only in so far as a simple idea, which is really around bringing together factions and forces in Iranian, Islamic culture, under one roof, to have them play nice together, to co-exist, float as one and to complete each other, in order to tell a story called Ta Tash, which is Farsi for To The End. More on that later.

When you live in the diaspora, you can have lofty dreams and ideals about how your homeland should show up. It’s a curse and a blessing. A blessing because you can dream without the weight of day-to-day reality only presenting you with impossibility. A curse because, well, you’re not in the wrestling ring, making things happen. Just another outsider, another hopeless romantic who dares to dream, but with no capacity to impact the result.

These sounds are accidents. You press record and let it go for a few hours. And you keep messing around, day and night, you toil away with the buttons, with the EQ’ing, you create, introduce sounds and samples in a hundred different ways, and who knows, maybe by chance, you create something that sticks…that hits you.
This is our attempt at that. We’re just humbled you listened. These sounds are repetitive.

We don’t know what it is with repetition that is so attractive. Not any one thing. But maybe an attempt to slow things down. At a time when it feels like we’re moving too fast, and everywhere you look, everyone’s solving for efficiency, getting stuck on four bars, or eight bars, or one bar, and just sitting the fuck back for a minute and taking it in, maybe that’s satisfying.

A largely futile attempt at controlling the uncontrollable. Making music that more accurately matches the rhythm, emotions, and ideals of your reality. Not necessarily the easiest to listen to. That’s okay.