San Francisco-based producer Aria Rostami could have utilized the cassette format, for his recently released Decades/Peter, keeping the compositions split into their respective sides. Peter would be one side, an ode to the memory of a lost relationship and the flipside its antithesis – a cut string that is definitively informed by Rostami alone. Decades/Peter is not tracked that way. Decades dominates the a-side, while the b-side strays from the orginal Peter tape, with original tracks missing and new ones imposing into the tracklist.
The Peter side was written from memory, specifically those shared with a past collaborator and composer. It aims to be a representation of both artists with Rostami relinquishing control to the fading memories of another's philosophy. It is informed by another, but written by one. The Decades side, where we find our debut “Delete” (that we did learn), is noisier with swarms of static ambience that give way to pristine instrumentals. It's as though Rostami is crafting a wall to shut out the outside world, so that he may explore the delicate once again. On “Delete” Rostami challenges the listener's patience with amplified drone noises and field recordings for nearly two minutes, but wait it out and the chaos loses to the twinkling keys of an IDM composition that soothes the ear drums into forgetting the the cacophony was ever there.
Aria Rostami's Decades/Peter is out now on Crash Symbols.
