In a challenging three acts – purification, initiation, and revelation – Universe in Prayer – فَلَک در ذِکْر takes the Bohlen-Pierce scale as a starting point for an intentional “invocation of Otherness, mystery, and transcendence.” It’s the latest from friend-of-the-site Arash Azadi.
This is not science fiction, and it’s not the use of tuning as a gimmick. The tuning becomes a vessel for self-reflection. And it’s a response to the world around us, in “devotional electronics for the metaphysically disoriented.” (My computer, for some reason, tried to change that to devolutional electronics, which also sounds fitting.)
It’s not empty, vague spiritualism, either, or background music; these are compositions to listen to with complete focus. The patterning is stripped down, but Arash’s cutting sound design, pushing the uncomfortable edges of the tuning system, are meant to challenge. As the composer puts it:
“In these dark times, Universe in Prayer is a call for inner cleansing, awakened listening, and a surrender to frequencies of light.”
Structured Experience is a fresh platform for Arash’s work; the artist is now based in Yerevan.
I adore Bohlen-Pierce; it’s a tuning system based on 3:1 ratios, dividing the octave into 13 instead of 12. And this seems to work naturally with electronic timbres. (There’s also a just-intoned version; what you’re hearing here is the slightly more sour tempered tunings.)
Now, as with any tuning, you don’t just switch it on; you need to find a musical idiom through playing. Here’s Arash jamming:
Despite the name, none other than Max Mathews helped popularize the approach, publishing in 1984 in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (ah, dear JAMS):
Four new scales based on nonsuccessive‐integer‐ratio chords
It was described independently by Heinz Bohlen, Kees van Prooijen, and John R. Pierce. Pierce’s larger claim to fame is that he co-created Pulse Code Modulation at Bell Labs (hence the connection to Max). Heinz Bohlen was also an engineer-turned-tuning spelunker.
The person whose name doesn’t get included, though, is maybe most relevant to Arash’s work – that’s Kees van Prooijen, who independently described the tuning in 1978. (I imagine it’s even possible there was some ancient instance of someone dividing into tripl ratios like this.) Van Pooijen, a Dutch transplant to California, reimagines the computer as an esoteric art instrument and codes unusual inventions like a Photoshop plug-in that spawns filters genetically.
More resources:
The Bohlen-Pierce Site [huygens-fokker]
…plus a pretty nice Wikipedia entry (eat your heart out, LLMs)
And I’m sure what you really want is to hear it on synthesized bagpipes, so, you’re welcome.
You can also esoteric mystical abstraction through Arash’s Max for Live visualizers, available for download:
https://azadiarash.gumroad.com
As covered previously:
If you crave something noisier after that, wish granted:
For more on his work, there’s this great (vintage 2019) feature on the SHAPE+ platform:
Arash Azadi on sampling Armenian church songs, maths and freedom
