Post Orientalism Music

02/01/2026

aesthetics of post-orientalism, Vol. II
Subject, Structure, Counterpoint
By Ehsan Saboohi

Published on Bandcamp
https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/aesthetics-of-post-orientalism-vol-ii-subject-structure-counterpoint

This album includes bonus items:

Book: 52-page theoretical text (PDF, A5 format, 148×210 mm)
42 Audio Exercises: High-resolution contrapuntal exercises (24-bit/96 kHz)
42 Visual Scores: MP4 video files with synchronized audio and visual notation (1280×720, 30fps)

All bonus materials are included automatically in your download.

This book addresses the fundamental question of how one voice becomes two voices, and how one being enters into relationship with another without either destroying the other or dissolving into it.

Ehsan Saboohi is a composer and music theorist of post-orientalism.

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29/12/2025

— POST-ORIENTALISM MUSIC: PUBLICATION CALENDAR 2026

aesthetics of post-orientalism, Vol. II: Subject, Structure, Counterpoint
Ehsan Saboohi, Author
Release: January 4, 2026

This book is about two. It concerns how one voice becomes two voices in musical counterpoint, and how one being enters into relationship with another without either destroying the other or dissolving into it. The central question is whether two can emerge within the linguistic and musical framework of the Middle East—whether, within a tradition that emphasizes the single melodic line, a subject can appear as a coherent one, and then a second subject as a genuine and independent two.

Edward Said proposed the concept of cultural counterpoint: two independent lines producing shared harmony while maintaining their distinctiveness. This book translates Said's theoretical framework into practical, testable, and reproducible rules within the domain of music.

If no path toward genuine two-voicedness exists except through fundamental departure from the linguistic and musical tradition of the Middle East, the author's answer is unequivocal: he is willing to undertake that departure. As a composer, he engages in a project of maximal forgetting—the deliberate effort to become conscious of what has sedimented beneath awareness, to examine the unconscious structures that shape hearing, thinking, and compositional practice.

This book moves systematically from theory to practice through four chapters, engaging with the works of Kant, Badiou, and Rancière, and providing contrapuntal exercises that demonstrate the practical realization of these principles. This is an attempt to find a path between two insufficient options: the uncritical acceptance of Western standards as universal norms or an absolute relativism that negates the possibility of dialogue and shared practice.

Post-Orientalism music label | Catalog: PO.0138

postorientalism.bandcamp.com

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27/12/2025

Dear friends and colleagues,

As we welcome the New Year, the post-orientalism community extends warm wishes for a prosperous and creative year ahead.

We offer our sincere thanks to all listeners, followers, and supporters whose engagement sustained our projects, releases, and conversations over the past year. Your attention, listening, and encouragement matter to the life of this community.

We also wish to express our deep gratitude to the publications, radio programmes, writers, and curators who gave critical attention to our work:

African Paper Magazine — Berlin, Germany

Hamish Mackenzie / Lost and Found Sounds — Taree (NSW), Australia

Kevin Press / The Moderns — Toronto, Canada

Kristoffer Cornils — Berlin, Germany — for his article "On post-orientalism as a Genre"

Dominic Castelli — Elysian Fields (KXCI-FM, Tucson, USA)

David Warmbier — Institute of Spectra-Sonic Sound (Eugene, OR, USA)

Rudy Carrera — Music You Need To Hear — Beijing, China

Signalstoerung / adventurous music — Leipzig, Germany

Wijnand Bredewold / Noise Radio — Netherlands

Manja Ristić / wabi-sabi tapes — Belgrade, Serbia

Radio Panik — Brussels, Belgium

We are also grateful to all contributing composers whose works appear on our anthologies and releases.

With appreciation,

post-orientalism community
on behalf of all contributing composers

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25/12/2025

Access:

Four Sleepers I: https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers
Four Sleepers II: https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers-ii
Four Sleepers III: https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers-iii
Four Sleepers IV: https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers-iv

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BandcampRelease

24/12/2025

Call for Collaboration — Sonitus Project: Post-Orientalism Anthology

In 2025, the Post-Orientalism label released eight volumes of the Sonitus anthology, comprising 105 individual works, sequentially numbered Sonitus No. 1 through Sonitus No. 105.

The Sonitus project adopts a research-driven approach, treating Sonitus not as a fixed audio object but as an ontological event. The focus is on sound as a site of disclosure rather than on formal or stylistic coherence.

Volume 9 is scheduled for release in January 2026. The 2026 roadmap commits to the release of one volume per month.

Participating Artists (2025)
Andrew Cheffings, Bruce Hamilton, Chem XP, Dave Seidel, Deniz Tafaghodi, Ehsan Saboohi, Emad KhankeshiPour, Hubert Heathertoes, Itaru Ouwan, Lena Koucheri, Mohammad Amin Akbarpour, Mohammad Reza Hashemi, RDKPL, Sina Noorizadeh, Soheil Shirangi.

Released Volumes (2025)
Volume 1: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-1
Volume 2: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-2
Volume 3: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-3
Volume 4: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-4
Volume 5: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-5
Volume 6: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-6
Volume 7: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-7
Volume 8: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/post-orientalism-anthology-sonitus-vol-8

Complete archive: https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/

Conceptual Framework
Sonitus is understood as an event that exceeds conventional definitions of sound. Treating sound solely as an object limits the possibility of engaging with its evental dimension. Within this framework, listening is an active practice that shapes both the work and the subject who encounters it.

The project avoids prescriptive aesthetics, embraces multiplicity and inconsistency, and prioritizes the Sonitus event itself over formal composition or genre-based classification.

Invitation
We invite composers, sound artists, researchers, and experimental producers interested in this approach to participate in the Sonitus project in 2026.

The project is non-profit, decentralized, and based on collaborative exchange. No fees, payments, or contractual obligations are involved.

How to Participate
Please send an email to [email protected] including:

A one-line introduction

A link to your work or samples

One sentence describing your motivation for joining the project

All submissions will be reviewed carefully. If there is conceptual alignment, we may discuss non-financial collaborations such as co-releases or shared events.

Contact
[email protected]

20/12/2025

Available on Bandcamp
"Four Sleepers II" by Nik Masoo

Pre-Order, Listen & Support:
https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers-ii
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About the Album — Four Sleepers II
Liner notes by Ehsan Saboohi

Zen philosophy emphasizes the dissolution of mental boundaries. This idea proposes that the distinctions we draw between self and other, human and nature, or consciousness and sleep are constructions of the mind and do not exist as independent realities. What we perceive as two separate things are, in truth, two aspects of one reality. The aim of Zen is to attain a kind of non-discriminating wisdom that arises through the practice of meditation—a state in which the boundary between mind and world dissolves.

The subject of “Four Sleepers” is a classic image in the Zen painting tradition that expresses this philosophy visually. These images depict four beings sleeping together: Fenggan, a Zen monk who lived with his domesticated tiger; Hanshan, the reclusive poet of Cold Mountain; Shide, an orphan whom Fenggan found and raised; and Fenggan’s tiger. In this scene, monk and wild animal rest side by side with no fear or dominance between them.

Zen painters rendered this subject in black ink on white paper; the contrast between deep black and empty white, between sharp brushstrokes and empty spaces, itself expresses the same philosophy of dissolving boundaries. The concepts of wabi and sabi—which emphasize simplicity, imperfection, and the passage of time—also play a distinctive role in these works.

“Four Sleepers II” is a (Total time: 01:28:55) composition structured around QuarkTonal intervals, drawing on the Zen tradition and the figure of the Four Sleepers.
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20/12/2025

Available on Bandcamp

"Four Sleepers" by Nik Masoo — a single QuarkTonal composition (Total time: 1:15:43), inspired by Zen pictorial practice, in the post-orientalism Genre.

Pre-Order, Listen & Support:
https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/four-sleepers

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12/12/2025

archive opening on bandcamp
postorientalism.bandcamp.com

29/11/2025

Dear members,
We’re sharing a limited number of download codes — completely free and with no obligation.
If you’d like to support the composers and future projects, consider buying the album or making a donation.

Album Title
Opus Five Vol. V

Works by:
Brandon Auger, Edø Pistø Sømi, Ehsan Saboohi, Itaru Ouwan, RDKPL

https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-v

[Album download gift codes:]

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12 track album

29/11/2025

Ehsan Saboohi — The Labor Nocturnes (8 Units) · From Opus Five, No. 5 · Post-Orientalism Label
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Available on Bandcamp

Album Title
Opus Five Vol. V

Works by:
Brandon Auger, Edø Pistø Sømi, Ehsan Saboohi, Itaru Ouwan, RDKPL

Pre-Order, Listen & Support:
https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-v

Available on BandcampAlbum TitleOpus Five Vol. VWorks by: Brandon Auger, Edø Pistø Sømi, Ehsan Saboohi, Itaru Ouwan, RDKPLPre-Order, Listen & Support:https:/...

29/11/2025

Available on Bandcamp

Album Title
Opus Five Vol. V

Works by:
Brandon Auger, Edø Pistø Sømi, Ehsan Saboohi, Itaru Ouwan, RDKPL

Pre-Order, Listen & Support:
https://postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-v

Tracklist:

1. Brandon Auger – her tiny scratches to replicate hiding

2. Edø Pistø Sømi – Colossal Squid (Abyssal Gigantism Edit)

3. RDKPL – 241228_03

4. Itaru Ouwan – バグり散らかす (bagulichilakasu)

5. Ehsan Saboohi – The Labor Nocturnes
(Inspired by Chopin, Nocturne No. 20 in C‑Sharp Minor (Op. posth.)

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Discography of the Opus Five Series

Opus Five Vol. I — postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-1
Opus Five Vol. II — postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-ii
Opus Five Vol. III — postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-iii
Opus Five Vol. IV — postorientalism.bandcamp.com/album/opus-five-vol-iv

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27/11/2025

Available on Bandcamp

Automaton Piano I & II
by Nik Masoo

https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/automaton-piano-i

&

https://nikmasoo.bandcamp.com/album/automaton-piano-ii-2

About the Album Automaton Piano

Automaton Piano is a research project in the post-orientalist genre that explores the relationship between sound, technology, and compositional structures. This album is built on recordings of eighty-eight piano keys as individual notes and uses a Python coding system to organize and perform these sonic materials.

In this project, the piano is treated not as a traditional acoustic instrument, but as a source of sonic material made available to the digital compositional process. The written code provides capabilities that are unattainable in human performance, including sub-second timing precision, ex*****on of more than thirty simultaneous events, and work with microtonal divisions based on the quark unit.

Automaton Piano is an attempt to open a new path in electronic music, where the interaction between human, machine, and artificial intelligence expands the possibilities of composition.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this collection to the memory of Milton Babbitt (1916–2011), composer and distinguished thinker of contemporary music.

Ehsan Saboohi

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