Sunday 4 July 2010
Iran's Guantánamo Bay: the cover-up won't work
Faced with undeniable evidence of a scandal, one solution is to blame others. But picking out a few expendable scapegoats from your own side – and punishing them – often works better. That is the tactic adopted by the Iranian regime in trying to shrug off revelations of atrocities in the Kahrizak detention centre.
This week an Iranian military court convicted and sentenced to death two officials who had been accused of torturing and killing three protesters in the centre during the aftermath of last year's disputed presidential election.
The reports added that nine other suspects in the case were also sentenced to flogging or prison terms and one person was acquitted. The verdict is said to be not final and can be appealed. No names have been disclosed and the court sat behind closed doors, so it is impossible to verify anything about the case independently of the official statement about the case.
Kahrizak, known as Iran's Guantánamo Bay among protesters, became a significant embarrassment for the Islamic Republic when a group of released prisoners gave testimonies to international media about the misfortunes they suffered in custody. It was built underground without proper ventilation and toilet facilities. Although it is supposed to have a maximum capacity of 50 prisoners, in the turmoil after Iran's presidential election it was filled with hundreds. At least five have died under torture there and some were raped.
In July last year, Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, ordered the closure of Kahrizak when Saeed Sadaghi, a pro-regime photographer, reportedly told him that he had been raped in the detention centre. However Khamenei didn't mention the rape until Mehdi Karoubi, an Iranian opposition leader, wrote a widely publicised letter to the head of Iran's Council of Experts revealing that he had met with a few of those who have been raped inside Kahrizak centre. The rape disclosure became a scandal for a regime that preaches moral values and boasts that it is an Islamic Republic. It sparked an outcry even within the supporters of the regime.
But it was only when 24-year-old Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a distinguished conservative figure, was named among those killed that the Iranian authorities were forced to respond. Subsequently, two other victims were identified, Amir Javadifar and Mohammad Kamrani. The two officials reportedly sentenced this week were charged with the death of these three protesters. (Opposition sources maintain that at least five protesters died in the centre, rather than three.)
As with other post-election scandals in Iran, the authorities first dismissed it as opposition propaganda, but later Iranian MPs assigned a committee to investigate the issue. In January 2010, the report of the investigation suggested that Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's former chief prosecutor, was behind the affair. However the claim of rape was dismissed in the report. Mortazavi was then rewarded by President Ahmadinejad with his appointment as head of Iran's counter-smuggling department.
But since last summer, the more the government has tried to put an end to the scandal, the more the details have emerged about what really had happened. Last month, Roozonline, a US-based Iranian website, revealed that Ramin Pourandarjani, the examining doctor who had disclosed details of the deaths of some protesters, including Rouhalamini, was allegedly suffocated, although the government maintains that his death was due to natural causes.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency had interviewed a prisoner of Kahrizak whose name and gender were not disclosed for security reasons. The prisoner had said: "After 43 days, they let me to call my family for the first time and let them know of my whereabouts. They showed me a video clip of my son and told me that he's in custody and he'll be raped if I don't confess to what they ask me to do."
The agency documented the scandal by piecing together the personal accounts of those who experienced the jail in Kahrizak. "Flogging, beating with batons and metal bars and electric shocks were common. Some were forced to pose their sexual organ in humiliation and some were sexually abused by bottles and batons. Some were bound and others had to pee on them," the report says.
It is not the first time Iran has used the old trick of covering up a scandal by such trials. After a brutal attack on Tehran University campus 11 years ago, which left at least two dead and hundreds injured, the government employed the same method and put its police commanders and officers on trial. However in the appeals court almost all were acquitted, except one who was charged with stealing a student's electric razor.
The trials over the campus scandal were not an end to the story; every year since then students have protested on the anniversary. Iran is now using the same tactic, but it won't work – just as it didn't work for the university campus. A month ago, there was speculation from an opposition website that Iran has reopened Kahrizak by changing its name to "Soroush 111". The Kahrizak story is far from over.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan @'The Guardian'
Joe Nice - Mala Tribute 06/10/09
I just got the link for Joe Nice's Gourmet beats radio show from last night, and it contained a very special treat - 16 foundation dubplates from the man like Mala. Many thanks to Section 5 on the heads up.
Download the whole show
Tracklist
01 Adultz Only
02 Mountain Dread March
03 Cowboy Dub
04 Creepah
05 Jah Power Dub
06 Pop Pop Epic
07 Intergalactic Dub
08 Living Different
09 Explorer
10 Unexpected
11 Maintain Thru Madness
12 Big Leg Movement
13 Friday B4
14 Conference Part II
15 Sundayz
16 Bring Sut Unt
02 Mountain Dread March
03 Cowboy Dub
04 Creepah
05 Jah Power Dub
06 Pop Pop Epic
07 Intergalactic Dub
08 Living Different
09 Explorer
10 Unexpected
11 Maintain Thru Madness
12 Big Leg Movement
13 Friday B4
14 Conference Part II
15 Sundayz
16 Bring Sut Unt
A London Dub – a best of Digital Mystikz & Loefah
I’d been looking for an excuse to do a DMZ only mix for a while now. And then my good friend Javier from Serie B mentioned that he’d never heard any of the early and classic DMZ releases until I linked him to the audio from the recent Red Bull Soundclash. I’d found the excuse I needed to do the mix. The idea was simple: do it like we used to back in the days when you’d put all your best songs on a tape for a friend to turn them onto something. Only this time the tape would be digital.
I spent most of the Easter weekend putting this mix together – it went from an all-out, in depth retrospective to a more measured attempt at a ‘best of’, or at least my ‘best of’. I’d originally got it just under 90 minutes to keep with the mixtape vibe but then realised I’d forgot a couple of tracks I absolutely wanted on there so instead of binning it and starting again I just added them and the result is 46 productions in 100 minutes – all tracks by Mala, Coki and Loefah including at least one track from each of the DMZ label releases plus key releases and remixes on various other labels including Tempa, Deep Media, Hotflush and Tectonic among others.
The following blurb about the mix is rather long so if you just want the music skip to the bottom of the post for link, tracklist and stream option.
Putting the mix together and listening back to it got me reminiscing about my own DMZ history and love story with the label, the artists and their music. It all started in 2005 on a rainy evening in London sometime after the summer. I randomly bumped into Steve Kode 9 – who at that point I hadn’t seen in ages – somewhere in Shoreditch who told me to come through to the Old Blue Last pub where he was spinning with some friends that night. I changed my plans and headed to the pub to find him alongside Mala from Digital Mystikz spinning upstairs to a small crowd (I think this night was part of the pub sessions which took place in 04/05 around London if memory serves me right…). And that’s when I discovered DMZ as a label and a sound for the first time.
I’ll never forget that night – every track Mala dropped had me rushing to the decks asking ‘what the hell is this?!’ before jumping around like a lunatic. I must have made a right tit of myself but I walked away that night with a grin on my face like never before and a phone full of release names and one label in particular, DMZ. In many ways this is also the night I ‘discovered’ dubstep again if you will, a few years after being first introduced by Kode to the dark garage mutations taking place in south London after he took me to some early FWD>> sessions at Plastic People and played me his early stuff.
The next thing I know I was in Blackmarket looking for DMZ releases and I went to my first DMZ dance in Brixton, the last one held at Third Base. The second one I went to was the now infamous night where they had to stop the party halfway through the night and move everyone from Third Base to the club upstairs, Mass, where they have been since because the crowd outside was stretching around the corner and there was no way Third Base would hold that many people.
It’s been nearly five years and in that time my love and respect for DMZ has only grown stronger. As a label they are for me one of the most consistent in the quality of their output, making them as fundamental to the sound and history of the music as Hyperdub, Tempa or Hotflush. As Mala and Loefah have both said in interviews, DMZ is a sound. It’s not dubstep, it’s the DMZ sound. It may be a part of dubsptep, but only as much as Hyperdub is or Tempa or Hotflush, to keep the comparisons with what I see as the other 3 key labels in the history and evolution of the music.
As a sound I never stop marveling at just how powerful the productions of these three individuals have been and continue to be. From Mala’s incredibly addictive percussive experiments to Loefah’s minimal sub assaults and Coki’s wobble experiments. These guys are responsible for creating, willingly or not, templates for the sound which have become standards. What’s more remarkable though is how they’ve steered clear of the pitfalls others so willingly fell into. They have always stayed true to their craft and their love of the music, and that’s not only visible in the productions, and their longevity (some of the tracks in this mix are 6 or more years old now), but also in their bi-monthly dances.
Going to a DMZ dance is something anyone who has ever felt something for their music should experience at least once if they can. I remember shortly after, and before, the dances became popular following the Mary Ann Hobbs special on BBC Radio 1 people would come to London from all over the world, literally, to witness the DMZ experience. The atmosphere, the people, the music all combined for some of the most intense and memorable live experiences I’ve ever had. When I left London for two years to go to Japan the one thing I always wanted to return for and missed the most were the DMZ dances.
All of which is a long winded way to explain that this mix is not only a present to a good friend of mine but also a way for me to say thank you to Mala, Loefah and Coki for their gift of music and the inspiration they have provided me in the last five years. Even if the label and dances were to stop tomorrow they would never be forgotten and will always live in my heart as some of the most important moments in my musical life. I spoke about this in more detail in my Red Bull Soundclash review, but one thing I realised after the clash is that to me DMZ, and their sound, are the musical epiphany equivalent to the jungle, hardcore and the early rave days of many of my British friends. I never grew up with rave and its offshoots, living in the south of France I was never exposed to that until I was 16/17 and moved to the UK. And while jungle and the post-rave mutations have been an important part of my musical make up, they haven’t had the same impact that DMZ, Hyperdub and others have had on me as a young man living in London who saw and witnessed the sound evolve, grow and become worldwide. I have a connection with this sound that is spiritual and goes incredibly deep. Like with rave music, I never knew about sound system culture until I was older and DMZ were key in helping me rediscover that culture and fall in love with it all over again.
Back to the point. You can download the mix below, or stream it, as well as find a complete tracklist. As I said before this is a best of Digital Mystikz (aka Mala and Coki) and Loefah productions – all of which are out, though most of the earlier ones are out of print and not all available digitally. All tracks mixed, mashed and dubbed in Ableton.
There are so many unreleased and lost dubs from these guys as well, many of which are for me incredible tunes (Mala’s Mountain Of Dread March, Eyez, Pop Pop Epic, Unexpected, Coki’s Lucifer, Loefah’s Boiler Suit and so many more) that I hope they one day see a release. In the meantime you should check out this amazing Joe Nice mix from the summer of 09 which includes a Mala only selection of all unreleased dubs. There are a few other mixes floating around with many of these lost dubs on there, so if you want more get hunting.
That’s it, all that’s left for me to say is enjoy and I hope you find as much inspiration in the music as I have over the last five years. And if you’re in London or Leeds when DMZ is in town be sure to come and meditate on bass weight – it’ll change your life.
Download A London Dub – A best of Digital Mystikz & Loefah (right click and save as) – 232mb, 320kbps mp3 file
Tracklist:
Mala – Changes (Deep Medi 004)
Digital Mystikz – Mawo Dub (BAM 004)
Digital Mystikz – Lost City (DMZ 002)
Coki – The Sign (BAM 009)
Loefah – Horror Show (DMZ 002)
Coki – Officer (DMZ 004)
Mala – Learn (DMZ 012)
Digital Mystikz – Ancient Memories (DMZ 008)
Digital Mystikz – Chainba (DMZ 001)
Loefah – Root (DMZ 005)
Search & Destroy – Candyfloss (Loefah remix) (Hotflush)
Digital Mystikz – Haunted (DMZ 008)
Digital Mystikz – Thief in Da Night (Soul Jazz)
Mala – Alicia (White Label)
Digital Mystikz – Earth a Run Red (Soul Jazz)
Loefah – Disko Rekah (Deep Medi 003)
Digital Mystikz – Molten (Tectonic)
Mala – Shake Up Your Demons (Disfigured Dubs)
Mala – Level Nine (Hyperdub)
Digital Mystikz – Anti War Dub (DMZ 008)
Coki – Bloodthirst (FREQ 001)
Loefah – Rufage (DMZ 009)
Coki – All Of A Sudden (Deep Medi 003)
Mala – Miracles (Deep Medi 012)
Digital Mystikz – Neverland (DMZ 005)
Mala – Blue Notez (DMZ 010)
Coki – Spongebob (DMZ 013)
Coki – Walkin With Jah (Soul Jazz)
Digital Mystikz – Twisup (DMZ 001)
Coki – Triple Six (DMZ 014)
Digital Mystikz – Ugly (BAM 004)
Mala – New Life Baby Paris (Deep Medi 012)
Mala – Lean Forward (DMZ 012)
Coki – Goblin (Disfigured Dubz)
Mala – In Luv (White Label)
Mala – Forgive (Deep Medi 004)
Johnny Clark vs Mala – Sinners (Disfigured Dubz)
Mala – Bury Da Bwoy (DMZ 011)
Loefah – Mud (DMZ 009)
Coki ft. Mavado – Gangsta for life (White Label)
Loefah – Jungle Infiltrator (BAM 006)
Digital Mystikz – Conference (Soul Jazz)
Loefah – System (Tectonic)
Digital Mystikz – Misty Winter (Soul Jazz)
Coki – Shattered (Tempa)
Loefah – It’s Yours (Ringo)
Coki – Burning (White Label)
Mala – Changes (Deep Medi 004)
Digital Mystikz – Mawo Dub (BAM 004)
Digital Mystikz – Lost City (DMZ 002)
Coki – The Sign (BAM 009)
Loefah – Horror Show (DMZ 002)
Coki – Officer (DMZ 004)
Mala – Learn (DMZ 012)
Digital Mystikz – Ancient Memories (DMZ 008)
Digital Mystikz – Chainba (DMZ 001)
Loefah – Root (DMZ 005)
Search & Destroy – Candyfloss (Loefah remix) (Hotflush)
Digital Mystikz – Haunted (DMZ 008)
Digital Mystikz – Thief in Da Night (Soul Jazz)
Mala – Alicia (White Label)
Digital Mystikz – Earth a Run Red (Soul Jazz)
Loefah – Disko Rekah (Deep Medi 003)
Digital Mystikz – Molten (Tectonic)
Mala – Shake Up Your Demons (Disfigured Dubs)
Mala – Level Nine (Hyperdub)
Digital Mystikz – Anti War Dub (DMZ 008)
Coki – Bloodthirst (FREQ 001)
Loefah – Rufage (DMZ 009)
Coki – All Of A Sudden (Deep Medi 003)
Mala – Miracles (Deep Medi 012)
Digital Mystikz – Neverland (DMZ 005)
Mala – Blue Notez (DMZ 010)
Coki – Spongebob (DMZ 013)
Coki – Walkin With Jah (Soul Jazz)
Digital Mystikz – Twisup (DMZ 001)
Coki – Triple Six (DMZ 014)
Digital Mystikz – Ugly (BAM 004)
Mala – New Life Baby Paris (Deep Medi 012)
Mala – Lean Forward (DMZ 012)
Coki – Goblin (Disfigured Dubz)
Mala – In Luv (White Label)
Mala – Forgive (Deep Medi 004)
Johnny Clark vs Mala – Sinners (Disfigured Dubz)
Mala – Bury Da Bwoy (DMZ 011)
Loefah – Mud (DMZ 009)
Coki ft. Mavado – Gangsta for life (White Label)
Loefah – Jungle Infiltrator (BAM 006)
Digital Mystikz – Conference (Soul Jazz)
Loefah – System (Tectonic)
Digital Mystikz – Misty Winter (Soul Jazz)
Coki – Shattered (Tempa)
Loefah – It’s Yours (Ringo)
Coki – Burning (White Label)
Stephen Fry on Social Media
Not the biggest fan of Mr. Fry - but he sure talks a LOT of sense here...
The Male Pregnancy
Couvade syndrome, the popular name is 'sympathetic pregnancy'. And here's the surprise, more expectant fathers experience this than you might think, everything from weight gain to cravings.
Early research in Australian shows around one in four men experience at least some of the symptoms of pregnancy.
Reclaiming Phil Spector's troubled genius
For many people, the name Phil Spector is now more synonymous with murder than with a long and illustrious music career. Famously labeled "the first tycoon of teen" by Tom Wolfe, his recording methods and innovations produced the type of songs that shaped the way we understand music: "Be My Baby," by the Ronettes, "Then He Kissed Me," by the Crystals, and "You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers. From his role in creating "Wall of Sound," the dense and layered music production technique that characterized an era, to salvaging the Beatles' "Let It Be" and producing John Lennon and George Harrison’s solo records, no history of pop music can be written without him.
Most of that work, however, took place before his spectacular and bloody fall from grace. After decades of isolation and several incidents involving brandished firearms, Spector was charged (and convicted in 2009) for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Vikram Jayanti's new documentary, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector," however, focuses less on his downfall than on the man's charms and his position in the musical pantheon.
Salon sat down with Jayanti and spoke about Spector's guilt and the reasons for his spectacular decline.
It’s been over a year since Phil Spector went to prison. How do you think people perceive him?
Unfortunately, the general sense out there is that he’s kind of a freak. Stories of him and guns have been running for 30 years. I don’t think in the general public’s mind he’s a big factor; it’s not like Paul McCartney went to jail. But if you stack up his 21 hits in a row, everyone of every age group has been hearing this their whole life and I wanted to remind people what an incredible artistic achievement it was.
Mick Brown’s "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound" discusses that paradox: those sweet pop songs coming from such a damaged soul.
When you’re listening to "River Deep, Mountain High" with that swirling chaos in the background, you begin hearing madness. When I hear "Be My Baby," I hear the Wall of Sound trying to push away the void. The yearning is not innocent, teenage yearning, it’s existential chaos. The man who ended up in the courtroom is the same man who made this hits and that’s sort of an abstract mystery to me.
I think that what a lot of artists do are acts of self-medication, in the chaos, disorder and anguish of the world, the moment you have some control, that you can make something beautiful, for a moment: You’re free. The problem is that if you have pathologies of various sorts, you also use it as an instrument of revenge.
Do you think he lost that ability to get to that moment of creative bliss -- and that contributed to his decline?
I think the music moved on. What’s amazing to me is that the Beatles put him out of business in 1965 and yet four years later he’s producing "Let It Be," so I think it’s incredible that he even had a second act. And it’s a fantastic second act. But I think the world moved on and that's hard for people who have been fantastically successful. I think he retreated into his castle and stopped drinking.
Stopped?
He had been sober for 10 years before the night of the death. As far as I understand it, that was the first day he had fallen off the wagon in 10 years.
What do you think happened that night?
I have to hedge my bets on that. Phil kept saying she killed herself. Leonard Cohen told a friend of mine a story of Phil pulling a gun on him and Leonard said: “Oh, Phil, you pull guns on everyone, you haven’t shot anyone yet. You’re not gonna start now.” I can't see that Phil pulled the trigger, even though he's pulled a gun on people all over the place.
It would seem that he introduced the gun in the proceedings that night.
He told me that whenever he had a date come to the house he let them know that there was a loaded gun in the drawer of every room and if they weren’t comfortable, the chauffeur would take them home. It's a perfect "Hollywood Babylon" story. Old, past his prime, legend producer takes home 40-year-old aging starlet. He popped a Viagra while she was in the bathroom taking off her false eyelashes and underskirt, and then she was dead. None of us were surprised. It was something we all assumed would happen one day. Which is why it was so easy for the court of public opinion to convict him. It just seemed another piece of how he lived.
Have you been in touch with him since he’s been in prison?
No, I’m gearing up to try to see him. I want to go pay my respects. Part of him is bound to hate the film because he's naked on-screen and he's weird. Part of him really ought to love the film. If he's feeling rational, he’s got to see that in many ways, however complicated the film is in its view of him, it's also a love song to his legacy, and that it's probably the best thing that will ever be out there about him in terms of humanizing him and celebrating his genius, and also, frankly, the film leaves the impression that I believe there’s a reasonable doubt. And I can't exonerate him, but I would like it to be 100 percent clear he killed her before I’m willing to believe he's guilty.
How do you feel about creating a "love song" to the legacy of someone many people think is a murderer?
I am going to be criticized for seeming to roll over and let him say anything, but I was interested in finding out what it felt like to be Phil, so to that extent, I let him be Phil. It wasn't my interest to evaluate him; it was literally an act of empathy. That’s something you can do with film that’s hard to do with another medium. You cannot discount the amazing soundtrack he gave a generation. I don’t want his legacy to be completely obscured, so I’m just trying to add to the stuff that's out there, and add a little balance. It doesn't excuse what he’s done or not done, but people are complicated, and life is complicated, I'm interested in the complexity.
Do you think there are still any Phil Spector-like mercurial genius characters working now?
James Cameron has that kind of control freak genius on a vast scale. And a lot of people come out of working with him hating him. But you have to hand it to him. "Avatar" is an act of megalomania, which happens to enrich our culture. And the same thing happened with Phil; he’s in the studio, he’s a megalomaniac and it enriches our culture. And I don’t know Cameron, but why do you have to be a nice guy if after you're dead, people are going to talk about "Avatar" in 100 years? The question is: What’s the difference between the art and the artist, what’s the difference between dancer and dance. And Phil is the most extreme example of that.
Besides offering the songs, what do you think Phil Spector’s legacy is?
He elevated the idea of production. He created the idea that there’s more than just recording a song and putting it out. It’s about how you record it. That's stayed with the business. He pushed pop music to where it could be argued that it was art. And obviously the Beatles took it further, and a whole slew of brilliant people have taken it further. But it was a big shift: It wasn’t disposable anymore.
And the Beatles only pushed it further when they began to utilize the recording studio.
He calls himself a revolutionary, and we do think of the music between Elvis and at least the end of the Beatles as a revolutionary movement, and he was one of the big warriors.
Do you think that sort of revolutionary aspect can exist now? Or that things can still be pushed forward?
I think things come in waves. I believe in music, I look for new artists who give me a sense that my life depends on listening to it. The stuff that picks you up by the neck and swings you around the room. Like the way that there's nothing so profoundly truthful as that moment when you know your lover's "lost that loving feeling." It’s so horribly raw and true. I believe that popular music is the achievement of the human experiment. We've found something that’s not possible for anyone else to make. It goes somewhere that humans can't articulate without music.
And Phil Spector is central to that?
Yeah, for his own contorted reasons.
Justin Sullivan @'Salon'
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