Patience (صبر) by Maral

"'Patience (صبر)' is a collection of music from pivotal periods of my musical exploration. From my early DJing days of exploring Iranian samples with electronic music to refining that idea into being in a punk band with my samples, and showcasing the folk vocals from different regions of Iran which would become 'Mahur Club'. The track "patience for an old friend" was conceived in 2020 and reinterprets the original version of the track ("patience") that I made in 2013, it is also the start of what would become my sound for 'Push', the use of live drums meshed with mutant electronics.

The punk trio of "Mashhad Hardcore," "Lorestan Punk," and "Mumble Punk" which were created in 2019 represent a deep angst that always prevails about the world and in particular how Iran is treated within the western imperialist hold on the world. How the people of Iran are forced to always be at a point of almost drowning, being pushed under, not given the opportunity to build something positive but yet they still keep going and make positive strides as much as they can. The vocals have this repressed quality to them but the beats hit hard. Nowadays, I have been trying to make "lighter" music, to represent the awe I have for the people of Iran and what they can accomplish although there is always a dark underlayer.

The track "patience" was one of my first experiments with sampling Iranian music and trying to express myself through music production as opposed to DJing in 2013. The beat is a sample of a moombahton track that I repitched and distorted. The Iranian sample repeats the words "but without you, I would be broken" "you're an old friend".
I made it during a time period where I was feeling romantic feelings about a close and old friend who I wasn't sure would reciprocate those feelings and worried about it ruining our friendship. Luckily those feelings were mutual and the person ended up becoming my partner who I am still together with.

I made a new version of "patience" in 2020 called "patience for an old friend," revisiting the original Iranian samples and creating something new that incorporates the battle of anguish I had during the time period of the original but then breaks into a new uplifting zone. The tracks start with the words "Hello, to my old friend" and delve into a dark vortex with additional Iranian folk samples saying "my love (azizam)". The track is then ushered out of the darkness by the Iranian tombak sample and into a new world where the vocal samples say "i'd die for you' (a positive term of endearment), "god willing it will be a positive year for everyone", "in the end I was able to make it", with the original sample of "you're my old friend" repeating in the background. I ended up sampling these same words for another track in my most recent album 'Ground Groove'.

I love the idea of revisiting the same vocal samples and treating them like band members, seeing how they can work in different settings."

Los Angeles’s Maral has spent the past half-decade quietly honing an approach that meshes the latest in club music contortions, a range of pulverized dub effects, and samples from her library of Iranian folk, pop and classical musics.

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