Artist Talk: Mariam Rezaei
Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer working across experimental new music, free improvisation, mutant club music and hip-hop. Described by The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time. In addition to her mastery of classic turntablist skills (skratches, beat-juggles), Rezaei has pioneered several techniques of her own, including free juggling, turntable sines (controlling sine waves with the pitch slider), needle dripping (composing music specifically for needle dropping on multiple decks at once), and needle weaving (using a digital vinyl system to loop music live using two decks, with nothing predetermined).
The Anglo-Iranian virtuoso’s work has been described as “genuinely ground-breaking” (London Jazz News 2022) and “high-velocity sonic surrealism” (The Guardian 2022). Praised by The Wire, Uncut and Bandcamp Daily, her latest solo release FRACTURED (Heat Crimes) was one of The Quietus’ cassette releases of 2024. In October 2025, she premieres Scholar’s Record, a major commission for the 75th Donaueschinger Musiktage that draws on the legendary festival’s audio archives. Other forthcoming projects include a new collaborative work with Ensemble Contrechamps to be premiered in Feb 2026 and solo, orchestral and band commissions for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2026. In addition to her solo work, Rezaei is a member of the international free music supergroup The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (with saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, trumpeter/electronics Gabriele Mitelli and drummer Lukas König) and the pioneering Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chávez, with whom she recently toured Canada and the USA. She has composed orchestral works with Matthew Shlomowitz (6 Scenes for Turntable and Orchestra, premiered at IMD Darmstadt 2023) and recently performed Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music with guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe. At JazzFest Berlin 2025, she will make her debut as Fire! Orchestra’s new turntablist, premiering the Words project.
Room 201C