The video, directed by Isiah himself, is appropriately DIY, offering a refreshingly genuine glimpse into all the spirituality, desire, lust, and passion that typifies the magically all-consuming coming together of two individuals in love.
With Shugga's hymnal-esque poeticism playing sensually in the backdrop as the narrative unfolds, one can only be transported into this steamy urban tale of vigorous intimacy. Check out the music video for "GOD" below.
That much is immediately clear, at least musically. Tehran has never been easy to categorize, and the production on Dozakh weaves in and out of genres, tapping into punk, rap, indie pop, and R&B along the way. The album opens with Tehran singing in Farsi on the airy 'Dozakh', before transitioning to her heart-ache induced crooning on the synth-laden 'Down'. “I came up with Persian music from my parents,” she recalls, “then I went through the whole Spice Girls era, the Britney spears era, and then I went into punk music, The Smiths and Joy Division, and then I went into hip-hop, and so all of those styles will always affect the way that I work.”
This sonic palette lends itself to the breadth of feelings beneath the surface. Her confrontational attitude is still present on songs like the punk anthem 'Something New', or the acerbic percussive-rap track 'Jet', but most of the album opts for a more introspective approach—a plea to be understood. “I wasn't arguing with anyone in these songs, I wasn't telling anyone what they should think or what they should think of me, this was just a place where I can just deal with things from an emotional perspective.” Like 'Refugee' and 'Cash Flow', Tehran’s politics are still on full display here; there’s even a song called 'Nazi Killer' which succinctly captures her view toward the rise of the right wing in countries across the globe, including Sweden: “I think it's this idea that we have about ourselves that Sweden is such a neutral country, we're not racist, so the self-image doesn't go with what's actually happening. The winds are really blowing here, and people aren't taking it seriously." But more often she allows the underlying political framework to carry her message, without the need to define it explicitly. “I'm a political person, so I put [the songs] in a political context, but a lot of them are love songs, or songs about drinking too much, or dealing with mental health, or all these things that are a product of a political and structural problem and oppression.”
That’s the heart of Dozakh, and whether it’s prompted by political instability, heartbreak, or interpreting your place in society, displaced identity is the running theme. The word dozakh, which means hell, conveys a sense of longing, which has tugged at Tehran for the better part of her life. “It’s an emotional state that you're in when you're separated from your lover, so it's a very specific place that you are in,” she explains. “It's like a metaphorical place when you're burning in this longing for someone or something, so you're just there, you're in dozakh.” Tehran sees it as a universal idea, applicable regardless of a person’s relationships or background or cultural environment. “It’s a sense that something is missing and you don't know what it is, and the quest of finding it becomes a state of mind. I think I've always felt like I've existed in some kind of gap or a void or in a distance to something, and that's my interpretation of what dozakh meant to me.”
Though Tehran still feels that longing for something, she’s still largely optimistic in the midst of uncertainty, and Dozakh lays all of that out for her in a cathartic way. “I've had this heavy weight that I've been carrying and now that I can tell it to you, you can relate to it, and then it just becomes lighter for both of us, because we can find a unity if we start taking about it and sharing the emotions and sharing the experiences, we can grow stronger together and be there for each other.”
As she surrenders to her feelings on album closer 'In Tune With the Moon', there’s a sense that she’s ready to move forward, and with ten years of her life bottled in a bold, eclectic, and all-encompassing work, it begins to reveal the thing she’s yearned for all along: “That really is the core of why I make music, because it connects me to other people that share the same feeling. It gives me hope, and it gives me energy to try and make a change.”
Limes. Linden-the fairer citrus, a sweeter less acrid alternative to its yellow brother. In ancient Rome, limes and citrus were signifiers of wealth and status. Limes and citrus also served as lofty symbols during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, representing the evolving conceptions and implications of mercantilism. Limes, meet BEA, BEA, meet Limes. We love a velvet-emerald moment.
Mercantilism. Crazy word. Crazy history to it. Brutal philosophy. How can we pretend that economic growth for one party does not happen at the expense of another? Acknowledgement of the crime would be an emerald moment indeed! In a brighter light, posing next to these small, hardened objects of glistening independence, put together in a bag big enough to fit two dozen, makes me feel like I’m looking at a primary school photo packed with enthusiastic children about to *pop* off the screen, seized by an ecstatic greed for life. Limes have so much powerful taste embedded into them. Compressed, covered, and protected in thick glossy skin, the lime knows its own potential and waits for the hand to unleash its fifteen minutes of fame.
Tomayto. Tomahto. A Tomato can be pureed. It can be roasted. You can simply toss it in a salad. Salsa? Or Ketchup? Marinara? Or V8? Lots of folks look down on tomatoes for their slimy texture and lack of flavor, typically in colder places where the tomatoes are petrified from the frigidity. We like tomatoes in the Mediterranean. Where they’re svelte, flavorful, and juicy. All you need is some salt and pepper. Here, we see you guard the box filled with them.
Tamato. Sexy color, understated value. Worth guarding until understood. A lack of flavor? Surely an error has been made. She needs some sort of company to prove her effective impacts. Grown up in a group of multiple branch sister/brother tomatoes, the "T" is used to having her company in place. If you want her to flourish, don’t be ashamed to grind her into the mix. At times, TOMATO1991 operates at best in this way. She doesn’t bring out her flavor solo by the rule. She needs the insights/ingredients of others to proceed sometimes. Having said that, though, who doesn’t?
Grape juice or Cabernet Sauvignon? Grapes have undergone dramatic shifts through the magic, or nightmare, of GMO’s. People weren’t huge fans of seeds back then, and food scientists listened, I suppose. To make a Chardonnay, you simply take the skin off. To make Burgundy, you keep the skin on. The insides are all the same. It’s funny—grapes ferment into the blood of Christ, but they also ferment for the joy of Dionysus.
Ever thought about the varieties in alcoholic influence? The wine of grapes make me feel very different to the yeast of beer or the mash of whiskey. Red wine makes me feel, slowly but surely, like something throbbing on the wall, expanding in slow motion, increasing in deep colours of bordeaux and deep purple. A big numb heart-thumping body of work. Perhaps I actually feel how a fermenting grape would feel itself. Blowing up with time. My speech becomes “older”, more serious or pleading for “academic”, whereas with a beer, I will blabber and sound as banal as I can, letting out all the slush collected and stored in my brain. Whiskey makes me giggly, punctual, rude, childish. Drinking grapes feels ancient. Their effect on me feels ancient. I don’t like eating them—too sweet. I like the dust on them and the veins you can see when you peel the skin off.
It’s rare that a good dish begins without an onion. It’s the foundation. It’s the absolute fundamental. It also makes us all cry. Surface is irrelevant with an onion, for it has layers upon layers, sinking deeper into a more pungent, potent nucleus. BEA1991, your music isn’t showing any signs of tapering off. And certainly, your sound and lyrics don’t stop at the top. For you, we like to investigate further.
I am a thing of layers. I want to be fundamental. I want people to follow my process of un- and re-layering. I make people cry, too. I’m starting to appreciate my surface more. I’ve also started appreciating the onion in its raw form. Sweet and spicy, crispy, semi-challenging to the nostrils starting from within—can the body smell from within?! I like that this product of nature isn’t particularly beautiful zoomed out, but look at onions zoomed in; there are many different functionalities. Raw, she is absolutely ruthless—people crying, tripping, belly blown. Slowly cooked, she is an absolute pleasure.
