Ebtekar’s compositions and installations weave expansive sonic tales that exhibit a strong engagement with electro-acoustic techniques, sound design, microtonal systems, and polyrhythmic motifs. His vivid soundscapes employ various synthesis strategies and DSP techniques, both in analogue and digital environments.

Much of his output deals with a continual exploration of abstract musical form as a commentary and reflection on current social and political experiences, mental states, and the human condition. His music challenges the listener with mutating sonic movements that contrast moments of fleeting melodic beauty and deep emotion with painful dissonance and abrasive noise. On his latest album Ministry of Tall Tales, out in February 2024 on SVBKVLT, Sote has further intensified this compositional approach in an attempt to process the immense amount of frustration, anger, confusion, helplessness and fear he went through in the recent years because of what has been happening in his surroundings and in Iran’s sociopolitical system. Consequently, he describes the album’s all-synthesis based music as an equally dark, melodic, and noise-driven contemplation on corruption, oppression and murder.

• Ministry of Tall Tales, by Sote

• Ministry of Tall Tales, by Sote

Sote’s ability to combine emotional depth with a relentlessly maximalist aesthetic is unique – as, for example, heard on 2022’s Majestic Noise in Beautiful Rotten Iran, about which The Sound Projector wrote that it »demands all your attention and, once it has all your focus, it takes it over entirely«, or on Hardcore Sounds from Tehran, which was listed on The Quietus’ Top 100 albums of 2016, and saw Sote re-invent high-energy banging hardcore by twisting it into challenging rhythmic and sonic structures. With the Sound System Persepolis album, released on Diagonal in July 2024, Sote revisits and actualizes his unique take on hardcore to once again push the very limits of contemporary underground brain/body music. It is a futuristic hardcore album of pummellingly rhythmic and harmonically complex computer music, which takes its name from Persepolis: the beating heart and administrative centre of the historical Persian Empire. Even at low volumes the harmonics, rhythmic textures and buffeting decay conjure the sense of a monumental rig (as featured on the album artwork) playing at earth-shaking volume, capable of displacing huge volumes of air, yet with barely a kick or a snare in sight. Intended to be performed live, on muscular and multi-channel soundsystems whether gallery or club, this computer music is not only meant to be heard but felt by the listener: its brutalist vibrational polyrhythms make it impossible to stand still, its directive to move standing in contrast with the more academically rooted computer music and sound art that has explored the same sound synthesis techniques used on the album.

• Sound System Persepolis [DIAG065], by Sote

• Sound System Persepolis [DIAG065], by Sote

Ata Ebtekar composes music with a deeply-held conviction that rules and formulas should be deconstructed and rethought. A pivotal figure of the electronic music scene in the Middle East, he alters musical modal codes from their original tonality and rhythmic tradition to achieve vivid synthetic soundscapes. Many of his daring compositions revisit traditional musical material and playing techniques and subject them to digital manipulations to achieve radically contemporary forms that range from the delicate to the abrasive, and display a unique ability to convey intense yet contrasting emotions. His acclaimed electro-acoustic albums Sacred Horror in Design(2017) and Parallel Persia (2019) are testament to Sote’s unique capacity as a composer with both acoustic instrumentation and synthetic material.

2020 saw the release of the 5-track album Moscels (Opal Tapes), described by Boomkat as »daringly iconoclastic and ravishingly future-curious.« Though the pandemic might have somewhat muted the attention for this marvellous release, Sote continued his work relentlessly, launching into work on another album, the harmonically maximalist and symphonic-synthetic Majestic Noise Made in Beautiful Rotten Iran, released digitally in February 2022 on Sub Rosa, and on vinyl in January 2023. In Autumn 2022 Sote was invited by the London Contemporary Orchestra to create a hybrid electronic and acoustic live version of the album for their prestigious Purcell Sessions series. For the live presentation of the album at leading events such as CTM Festival, Le Guess Who, and Fiber Festival, Sote again collaborated with celebrated visual composer Tarik Barri, known for his work with Monolake, Thom Yorke and Nicolas Jaar. Together they created a real-time AV show, that is as abstract as it is emotional, and as intricately complex as it is bold and dynamic. 

A driving force behind Tehran’s vibrant electronic music scene, Ebtekar was a co-founder of the SET Festival in Tehran, and is the founder of the Zabte Sote label, a platform to promote experimental and electronic music from Iranian and the Iranian diaspora. With nearly 20 releases to date, that feature artists such as Soheil Shayesteh, Rojin Sharafi, or SAHAB, the label’s output gives a deep dive into the richness and diversity of contemporary Iranian explorative music, as do the label showcases, that Sote is always keen to curate for interested festivals and venues.

Working on a plethora of ideas for both solo synthetic music as well as electro-acoustic ensemble pieces, Sote is always on the lookout for new challenges or commissions that invite forays into new creative territories.

• Majestic Noise Made in Beautiful Rotten Iran, by Sote

• Majestic Noise Made in Beautiful Rotten Iran, by Sote