Kia Mazzi is an Iranian born local musician from Boston US, who's work circumnavigates the depths of electronica, indie dance and progressive house. Originally inspired by Jean Michel Jarre, he employs a wide array of hardware synths from his personal collection and now releases his album ‘Mothership’, which is out now. He believes that the artist should remain "the student of the game" and to keep practicing, and to follow their ideals. Some logistical mistakes should be expected during that growth. He also believes there is evolution within imperfection, a creative progression that will come from practice, from hard-won trial and error.
Kia Mazzi: “If someone is trying to tell a story, or write a book they should be able to say it the way they want to say it.
“In this world, being an independent artist is hard to do and to be. Everyone may be talking about being such, but as you go further, get deeper into the business, you may find even less people are actually doing it."
Being able to finish an album, on his own, after 11 years of working on its music, Kia Mazzi wanted to get to that point where he could actually have a story to say something, to open up with music heavily influenced by the many powerful stories of his personal life.
Not to prove a point, it was now a personal challenge to complete a project of old works after many years of deliberation and tentative decisions to withhold them. Ironically, it has been Kia's attention to accuracy, his dedication to the craft of sound design that has kept him so long in the wings, keeping in lockup so many tracks that he is now sharing on ‘Mothership’.
‘Mothership’ includes some collaborations with Kodey Brims (singer/songwriter from Australia/Berklee graduate) on 'Your Shadow' and 'Machine’. Last Spring when he was an opening act for Infected Mushroom & Randy Seidman, Erez was nice enough to send him their new Plugin "Polyverse." So it came just in time to allow him to add these elements and design harmonising pitch shifts to Kodey's vocals.
The majority of the album’s tracks were conceived while Kia was growing up in Tehran. The strong musical influence came from his father; his broad collection of vinyl exposed his son to everything from original soundtracks to his classical and jazz collection.
He is a slave to sound design. From software to hardware he's passionate to create a new spectrum to write melodies that are memorable and rhythms that are danceable. His sound has a textured worldly quality to it that is distinct yet not easily put into a simple category, forged in Iran and honed in America, the production is the fruitful culmination of both countries.
© justaweemusicblog.com