Review: mHz – sometime after two, somewhere else

leerraum.

Described by Mo H. Zareei as “a reflection on living in suspense between two geographies, two time spans, and two selves”, this 33-minute composition is akin to watching a torchlight sweep over a wall in a ceaseless figure of eight. A single synthesiser chord undergoes gentle modulations of tone and placement, becoming muffled as it seeps into the corners and then rising with renewed brightness, twirling to accentuate either the shimmer of higher notes or the interior humming of mid frequencies. Just as the title of the piece establishes time and place through approximation and negation, mHz posits that belonging to two different circumstances is equivalent to belonging to nowhere, at least concretely. The synthesiser is denied even a moment of stillness, fated to sweep and to search, nurturing the multitude harmonic pulses of divergent temporalities as it splays upward like solar fingers or recedes into murmurs. Even the chord itself is a harmonic in-breath, taut and unresolved, poised in that potential space before the spoken utterance, elegantly postponing the answer to a question such as, “what time is it right now?”. It’s a simple premise, and the results are beautifully complicated.