King Britt is a composer, producer, and performer who integrates contemporary electronic music practices with an industry-informed perspective. Britt has performed around the world at SummerStage, Berghain, and Big Ears Festival and collaborated with artists including De La Soul, Madlib, John Legend, and Tyshawn Sorey. As a Professor in Computer Music at UC San Diego, Britt developed and teaches the popular course Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music, honoring the artists within the African diaspora who pioneered groundbreaking genres within electronic music. In the interview, we talk about the early influence of Sun Ra, Britt’s interest in science fiction and Afrofuturism, and his recent Blacktronika festival in Philadelphia.

Music: Tension Remains (feat. Pia Ercole) by Fhloston Paradigm (Hyperdub); Uzoamaka (King Britt's Scuba Mix) by King Britt presents Obafunke (Something Happening Somewhere); …Hours by Fhloston Paradigm feat. Puerto Rican Space Program (KingBrittArchives); New World In My View by King Britt presents Sister Gertrude Morgan (Ropeadope Records/Rykodisc)

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This episode of the Other Minds Podcast was hosted by Joseph Bohigian and Rachel Schonfeld and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Mahsa Vahdat is an internationally acclaimed Iranian singer and composer. She is an iconic figure in the struggle of Iranian women for artistic freedom in the complex socio-political landscape after the Islamic Revolution. Deeply rooted in the rich tradition of Persian classical music, her work blends classical and regional Iranian music, poetic lyricism, and contemporary idioms. Now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she has engaged in musical partnerships that span a wide range of genres and cultures, including projects with Kronos Quartet, Tord Gustavsen, Mighty Sam McClain, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Pacific Symphony. In the interview we talk about her early musical influences in Iran, her defiance of government restrictions on female singers, and her intercultural musical collaborations.

Music: My Home by Mahsa Vahdat, performed by Mahsa Vahdat and Ellen Bødtker (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); Braids of Innocence by Mahsa Vahdat and Atabak Elyasi, performed by Mahsa Vahdat and SKRUK (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); The Vow composed and performed by Mahsa Vahdat (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); The Moon-Faced of Our Beloved by Mahsa Vahdat and Marjan Vahdat (Marjan & Mahsa Vahdat live at House of Music Hungary)

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otherminds.org

Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.

The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Joseph Bohigian is a composer and performer of acoustic and electronic music. His work focuses on issues of memory, cultural reunification, and diaspora. With a strong interest in reestablishing a relationship with lost elements of our past to better envision our future, he makes use of archival materials in his music, such as sound recordings, interviews, and written texts, synthesizing fragments of song lyrics and reviving ancient musical notations.

Khatchadour Khatchadourian is a Lebanese-Armenian vocalist and duduk player based in the Bay Area. Growing up within the Armenian diaspora in Lebanon and Aleppo, Syria, Khatchadour’s voice pays homage to the vocal landscapes of the South Caucasus, Levant, and Anatolia. Khatchadour’s passion for the duduk, an Armenian double reed woodwind, began in 2007, and has since taken him on musical journeys across Armenia and Southern France.

On the opening night of this year’s Other Minds Festival, Khatchadourian will be performing with Ensemble Decipher in the world premiere of Bohigian’s I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment, a symbolic biography of the Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov told through the multilingual poetry of Sayat-Nova. On this episode, guest host Devin King interviews Khatchadouian and Bohigian about the project.

Music: Scenes 7, 1, 8, and 5 from I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment by Joseph Bohigian, performed by Khatchadour Khatchadourian and Ensemble Decipher

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otherminds.org

Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.

This episode of the Other Minds Podcast was hosted by Devin King and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).