nine-sum sorcery debuted at Berlin Atonal’s main stage in August of 2019 and draws inspiration from Sohrab Sepehri’s modern poetry and Reza Negarastani’s theory-fiction book titled, Cyclonopedia which imagines oil as a sentient being. nine-sum sorcery’s epic structure situates three traditional songs in alternation with three distinct audio-visual chapters; the songs are sung in Farsi and Kurdish and the a/v chapters unfold under the following titles: The Wheel, Cyclone and Xerodrome.
During the verses, the enigmatic electronic music of HATAM provides the base for the masterful and emotive vocals interpretations by Mojtahedy. The onstage musicians operate jointly as sorceresses, conjuring massive eruptions of sculptural digital sound, voice and percussion, giving rise to the monumental audio-visual chapters, of which the visuals unfold in recurring form: original graphic illustrations of specific occult imagery give way to journeying 3D animation videos by Enes Güç, Eveleyn Bencicova and lettering by Zeynep Schilling which are abstract yet evocative, finally arriving in the final section of disembodied digital voice and epic transcendence.
The Wheel
They lay deep, under the pressure of thousands of tons of earth and rock. Prehistoric organic matter accumulated beneath the ground. Pure energy that the earth had repressed down from a specific form to raw black energy juice.
Cyclone
Oil is an object of desire and the means of destruction. Narrative organiser, lubricant. A pipeline crawler. Holly water. Hydrocarbon corpse-juice. Gives energy and destroys. Everything is connected, beneath the ground.
Xerodrome
Dust is a real nomadic entity, it migrates elsewhere, spiriting itself away as an illusive ground. When dust particles are composed, they combine countless terms, languages and materials belonging to entirely different kingdoms.