Chess of the Wind, by Sheida Gharachedaghi & Mohammad Reza Aslani

Chess of the Wind

by Sheida Gharachedaghi & Mohammad Reza Aslani

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Pre-order of Chess of the Wind. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

Purchasable with gift card

releases June 14, 2024

$7 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
PREORDER - shipping on or around June 14, 2024
(Note: If you order this record alongside other items, your whole package will ship together on June 14. If you want the rest of your package to ship sooner, please make two separate orders).

*BLACK VINYL*

high gloss jacket with 8pg booklet featuring images from the film, interview with Gita Aslani Shahrestani, and lyric translations in Farsi and English

Includes digital pre-order of Chess of the Wind. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

shipping out on or around June 14, 2024

Purchasable with gift card

$27 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
PREORDER - shipping on or around June 14, 2024
(Note: If you order this record alongside other items, your whole package will ship together on June 14. If you want the rest of your package to ship sooner, please make two separate orders).

*TRANSPARENT AMBER VINYL*

high gloss jacket with 8pg booklet featuring images from the film, interview with Gita Aslani Shahrestani, and lyric translations in Farsi and English

Includes digital pre-order of Chess of the Wind. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

shipping out on or around June 14, 2024

Purchasable with gift card

$28 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
PREORDER - shipping on or around June 14, 2024
(Note: If you order this record alongside other items, your whole package will ship together on June 14. If you want the rest of your package to ship sooner, please make two separate orders).

hand made die-cut on chipboard jacket, includes 8pg booklet featuring images from the film, interview with Gita Aslani Shahrestani, and lyric translations in Farsi and English.

20% of profits will go towards organizations supporting the womens' movement in Iran. Jin Jiyan Azadi!

*TRANSPARENT AMBER VINYL*

Includes digital pre-order of Chess of the Wind. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

shipping out on or around June 14, 2024

edition of 50

Purchasable with gift card

$50 USD or more

1.	Prelude
2.	Dance of the Spirit
3.	The Dream of Death
4.	Purgatory
5.	The Truth of Death
6.	Moribund
7.	Awareness of The Dying
8.	Darkness Enters
9.	The Funeral / Revolt
10.	The Illusion of Serenity / Arrest And Detention
11.	Golliwog / Masculine Conquest
12.	Hope Arises from Despair 01:36	buy track
13.	Ending Parade

about

The lost soundtrack to “Chess of the Wind”, Iran’s banned 1976 queer-gothic-class-horror masterpiece, restored by the director and released for the first time. Not for the faint of heart!

A masterpiece of world cinema, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s “Chess of the Wind” was banned in Iran and thought to be lost until a complete print of the film re-emerged in an antique shop in 2014. Restored by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and released to rapturous reviews in 2020, “Chess of the Wind” has taken its rightful place as one of the most visionary and daring films of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema.

The film’s soundtrack, by one of the nation’s most revered female composers, Sheida Gharachedaghi, is just as daring - a combination of Persian classical instrumentation and atonal dissonance drawn from her Western conservatory background. Woodwinds, traditional Persian percussion, and the eerie moan of the ancient sheypour horn reflect the film’s battle between feudalism and modernity. As one scholar said, it sounds like “Ornette Coleman visiting a holy shrine in Iran.”

For this release, the director and composer worked with film scholar Gita Aslani Shahrestani to reimagine and restore the music, combining it with work from another (as yet unreleased) Aslani/Gharachedaghi project “Therefore Hangs A Tale.” The result is two side-length sound collages, a new sonic work that Aslani had long dreamt of creating. The work is a legible sonic journey that speaks to the film’s feminist themes, tracing a long battle for freedom in Iran from the early 20th century through today’s Women Life Freedom Movement.

Mississippi is proud to release a major work by two of Iran’s most visionary artists. The release comes with 8 full-size pages of liner notes and stills from the film, including song translations and an in-depth history by film scholar Gita Aslani Shahrestani.

credits

releases June 14, 2024

Composer: Sheida Gharachedaghi
Album Direction: Gita Aslani Shahrestani
Based on an original idea by Mohammad Reza Aslani from his films “Chess of The Wind” and “Therefore Hangs a Tale”

Album produced by Cyrus Moussavi
Mix, Sound Design by Rafael Bernabeu García / Eport Studio
Mastered for vinyl by Timothy Stollenwerk / Stereophonic

Album Artwork & Label Manager: Sam Wenc
Booklet Design: Building 417 Studio
Graphic Production: Dan Fried
Text: Gita Aslani Shahrestani
Label Coordinator: Maria Barrios
Licensing: Adam Holofcener

Special thanks to Nooshin Rostami, Mani Nilchiani, Brian Belovarac and Angie Bucknell at Janus Films/The Criterion Collection

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about

Mississippi Records New York, New York

Mississippi Records was dreamt up 21 years ago.

Vital but often overlooked music made accessible through quality and affordable records and tapes, with respect to artists and their vision.

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