Saba Alizadeh & Farzané (NL/IRN) + Vehicle/Passenger (US/CW/DE)
Saba Alizadeh
Architect of Power Ambient
Saba Alizadeh occupies a singular space in contemporary music ,a sonic language so distinct it seems to exist outside comparison.
Coming from a distinguished musical lineage and shaped by more than two decades as a composer, producer, and performer, he has developed an artistic voice that merges deep cultural memory with fearless sonic experimentation.
Across four critically acclaimed albums, he has continuously expanded the boundaries between contemporary composition, electronic music, and Persian sonic heritage.
Having lived through defining social and political ruptures – from witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall as a child to experiencing the Green Movement and the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran – his work carries the emotional residue of history not as commentary, but as lived memory transformed into sound.
Emerging from Tehran’s underground electronic scene, Alizadeh forged a deeply personal language where Persian classical music, experimental electronics, archival recordings, and cinematic tension dissolve into what critics have called “Power Ambient.”
At the center of his performances stands the Kamancheh: the ancient Persian bowed instrument whose raw, human cry he reshapes through live processing and sonic experimentation into something both ancestral and radically contemporary.
His live sets unfold like fragments of forgotten cinema – dense, haunting, and physical. Continuously reimagining how history, memory, and resistance can breathe through modern sound.
”A bridge between the ancient and the contemporary” — The Wire
”A fresh, compelling soundscape” — Pitchfork
”Hope as an act of resistance” — Frankfurter Rundschau
”Music that feels like a cinematic unfolding of history” — Chain D.L.K.
”The stringed Kamancheh is a living soul and primal voice” — Veil of Sound
"Temple of hope" Live Concert<a href="https://sabaalizadeh.bandcamp.com/album/temple-of-hope">Temple Of Hope by Saba Alizadeh</a>
Farzané
(Farzaneh Nouri), an Iranian sound artist, creative coder, and researcher based in the Netherlands, works at the intersection of experimental music and computer science. Her ongoing practice-based research focuses on embodied knowledge in improvisational settings with machines. Embracing AI’s fundamental otherness while establishing relational connections, her practice aims at creating conditions of genuine encounter and collaborative destabilization between the artist and the machine. This speculative approach moves beyond technological determinism and cultural essentialism, exploring how human and machine intelligences might co-evolve through creative tension and collaborative aesthetic discovery.
Farzané at Audiomanzia<a href="https://farzane.bandcamp.com/track/chiasma">CHIASMA by Farzané</a>
VEHICLE/PASSENGER
Ethereal yet full of raw power. A tour-de-force of artistic expression combined with an urgent message on the state of our world.
In VEHICLE/PASSENGER we gather around thoughtful, radical poetry, as it weaves through energetically improvised pieces and delicate soundscapes. Exploring a queer perspective on body, society and improvisation. The trio reveals a unified, futuristic sound, repositioning the past, present and future of experimental music, free jazz, hip-hop, live electronics and poetry.
“An energy and urgency without simple slogans.” – WDR, Odilo Clausnitzer
“Vehicle/Passenger has created one of the most honest and unique recordings of 2024.” – All About Jazz, Maurice Hoge
The Ballad of a Never-ending Elevator Accident – VEHICLE/PASSENGER – Live in AmsterdamM Alberto (NL/AN) – poetry , saxophones and electronics
Lesley Mok (US) – drums and percussion
Florian Herzog (DE) – double bass and electronics
M. ALBERTO (they/them), is a Euro-Carribean improviser, award-winning poet and composer. Born in Curacao and currently based in the Netherlands. M.’s work is explicitly political, and always critical of colonial structures. They are one of the driving forces behind theatre collectives Boys won’t be Boys, as well as a steady collaborator in other critical productions. They have performed internationally on diverse stages and theatres from The Royal Concertgebouw and the Dutch National Opera to pop-festivalslike Sziget, Rock Werchter and Pinkpop.
FLORIAN HERZOG, bassist and composer, is a pioneer of the German and international jazz and avant-garde scenes whose bass playing has been described by the press as “emancipated, spirited and sensitive.”
He has worked with established greats like Theo Bleckmann, Jim Black and Nils Wogram, but also with the new generation and musicians like Anna Webber, Elias Stemeseder and Nick Dunston.
LESLEY MOK (they/them) is a percussionist and interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY, who works in sound, installation, film, and theater. Interested in the ways social conditions shape our beings, Lesley’s work focuses on overacting humanness to explore ideas about alienness and privilege. Their work draws from queer and feminist art practices, Chinese philosophy, Caribbean folkloric musical traditions, futurist perspectives, and ancestral knowledge. Their critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Living Collection’ was awarded with a prestigious Deutscher Jazz Preis in 2024.
