Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis + Remixes Edition 1

The context for Persepolis is, by any standard, strange, but fascinating.  The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, decided, in 1971, to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of Persia by Cyrus the Great by holding an event that also was intended to justify the Shah's place in Persian history, though eight years later he was deposed by a conservative religious revolution.

As part of the festivities, the Shah commissioned composer Iannis Xenakis to create a piece of music and the result is the astounding Persepolis, named for the city built by Cyrus and the ruins of which are in the deserts of the south part of the country.  As a symbol of the ancient power and might of the Persian Empire, Persepolis became the basis for an extraordinary piece of music as extreme sound that seems totally alien to that society and for that matter most modern ears!

This listener finds the nearly hour-long work on eight-channel tape, with this 2002 version on Asphodel Records based on the original tapes with consultation of Xenakis, to be compelling as a gradual build-up of sound that may not conjure up anything specific about ancient Persia or Persepolis.  There is a haunting and desolate feel that does not remotely sound celebratory.

Xenakis, however, latched on to a crucial concept in Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient Persians, involving the binary conflict of darkness and light.  The piece, blared through nearly 60 loudspeakers, also emphasized light, through torches and bonfires (ancient light) and lasers and bright electrical light (modern forms).  It is hard to imagine that attendees were anything but stunned and confused by the spectacle.

The composer said that Persepolis was reflective of "history's noises" and the mechanical sounds, high-pitched percussion sounding like dragged objects, echoed hisses and howls seem to indicate a primeval passage through the turmoil of history.  It is disconcerting, but also hypnotic when concentrated attention is placed, especially in the last ten minutes, which is incredibly intense.

A second disc of remixes by electronic artists from Japan, Spain, Poland, Germany and the United States are varied and often bear little over resemblance to Xenakis' piece, but, as is often the case, take basic inspiration as a means to express general affinity and kinship about the nature of extreme sound.

To this listener, hearing Persepolis is somewhat akin to hearing Lou Reed's confounding, but remarkable, Metal Machine Music, including its stunning notated reproduction by Zeitkratzer.  What could seem like a joke or complete self-indulgence takes on an aura of inspired explorations of the outer limits of music, espcially considering the strange relationship of Xenakis, a modernist, avant- garde musical revolutionary and the autocratic Shah not long removed from an ignominious end.