Rojin Sharafi’s artistry treads a fine line between aggression, tension and energy. Her music is often hectic, unpredictable and unsettling, yet it retains a sense of harmony – like a sonic picture book, always revealing new layers to be discovered. She aptly describes her work as “imaginary restlessness”. Sharafi pushes the boundaries of music to the limit, whether through frequencies, rhythms or by challenging the very concept of classical harmonies – constantly refuting and reaffirming them to captivate her audience. As a result, it is difficult to categorise the work of this composer and performer. She expresses a preference for not being labelled.  

Sharafi was born in Tehran, the capital of Iran, and now lives in Vienna. She composes experimental electronic and electro-acoustic music and has released four solo albums to date. She is also a member of the trio HUUUM, along with singer Omid Darvish and saxophonist Álvaro Collao Leon. Together they blend folk music from different regions of Iran with jazz and electronic influences to create a sound they describe as folk futurism. Sharafi also works across disciplines, accepting commissions for film, dance and composition. Sharafi is a true all-rounder whose music reflects both her classical background and her wide range of musical influences.  

Born in 1995, she grew up in a household where music played a central role. She was introduced to Carl Orff’s Schulwerk at an early age and went on to study classical piano. She remembers her teacher as someone who was “considered one of the best”, but who was strict and never satisfied. “This old tradition of classical music was traumatic for me,” she recalls today. For the young musician, it was literally stifling. “My teacher always told me to move less,” she laughs. As a teenager, she was more attracted to rock and heavy metal. At the same time, she began collecting old and folk music from around the world, particularly from her native Iran. “I couldn’t bridge the gap between these two worlds,” she reflects today, speaking of the conflict between these passions and her classical training.  

Always on the move

In 2012, at the age of 17, she moved to Vienna to study composition. The upheaval in her life was reflected in a shift in her sound. “Tehran and Vienna are complete opposites,” she says. “Tehran is huge and bustling, while Vienna is much quieter. I had to learn how to navigate that when I moved to Vienna.” Initially drawn to contemporary music as a source of inspiration, she eventually distanced herself from it during her studies. “The structures were too rigid, the hierarchies too strict,” she explains. She felt that something was missing. Instead, she started experimenting. She began working on electro-acoustic compositions and from there explored various forms of musical expression and traditions – such as jazz harmonies and, inevitably in Vienna, rave. 

But she also draws inspiration from other art forms, particularly film and literature. “When I was 16, I was part of a group that wrote a lot and watched a lot of films. It had a huge influence on all of us.” The gradual broadening of her interests is reflected in her diverse range of projects. Sharafi has worked with the Why Not? Collective, the Decoder Ensemble, the Schallfeld Ensemble, the Black Page Orchestra and Ensemble United Berlin. She also frequently collaborates with film and dance productions, including Arte Creative and Tanzquartier Wien. Her debut album, Urns Waiting to Be Fed, was released in 2019 on Zabte Sote, a label for experimental music by artists from Iran and the Iranian diaspora. The label, which is run by the composer Ata ‘Sote’ Ebtekar, specialises in electronic sounds. 

Sharafi’s work as a solo artist is the result of a long and creative process. Before composing, she conducts extensive research, collecting materials and refining concepts, textures and initial sketches. Her creative inspiration comes from a wide range of sources, including film, theatre and other music. Her second album, Zangaar, also released on Zabte Sote in 2020, is based on her own poetry, which she incorporates into the eight tracks as spoken word. She also dabbles in literary writing, she says, but is reluctant to make it a career. “I think it’s good not to turn everything into a profession,” she explains. “Since I started making music professionally, I see a lot of things differently, and I can no longer enjoy some of them as much as I used to. On Zangaar, however, both forms of expression come together perfectly.” 

Sharafi’s interdisciplinary approach, influenced by narrative and dramatic forms, is reflected in the structure of her pieces and the stylistic devices she employs. Her work incorporates artistic methods such as montage and collage techniques, as well as dramatic forms such as role-play and narrative devices such as analepsis and prolepsis. Personal themes and reflections also find their way into her compositions. This is evident on her album Kariz, for example, where she blends electronic and acoustic elements and explores contrasting moods. “I was able to draw a lot of inspiration from visuals, spaces and storytelling – all based on the concept of Kariz, an ancient sustainable system built 3,000 years ago to store water in desert areas,” says Sharafi. On a personal level, Sharafi applies the concept of Kariz, this life-supporting system: The album is a search for a sustainable system of living with your body, your ideas, your home, your past and your surroundings. “Kariz is about accepting your Ideal-I as a holobiont in your living environment,” says Sharafi. 

“For me, my four albums are chapters of my life that I’ve processed musically,” Sharafi continues. “There’s a lot of me in them, even when I’m exploring other themes.” 

Psychoanalysis and anarchy

This is perhaps most evident on her latest, fourth album, O.O.Orifice. On this album, her interests in various musical and non-musical subjects, as well as emotions, come together seamlessly. “I have been studying psychoanalysis for several years – I live in Vienna, after all,” Sharafi laughs. She explains that undergoing analysis has given her a completely new awareness of her own desires. “It has shaken my perception of myself and my life,” she says. It also affected the formal structure of her music. “On the album I was very interested in cuts, because after each analysis session there’s also a cut,” Sharafi explains. “The more intense it is, the more you have to process it between sessions. My question was: how can I translate this into music?”

On O.O.Orifice, analogue synthesizers, microtonal acoustic and digital instruments, fragmented rhythms, poetry, and the nuanced – sometimes confrontational – use of her own voice merge into a complex narrative that explores themes of love and attraction, psychoanalysis, shame, loss of home and the experience of rejection. Musically, Sharafi translates these themes through a blend of different timbres and textures, giving each track its own unique, abstract atmosphere that demands the listener’s full attention. Aggression, tension, and energy are omnipresent – this album is brimming with them.   

The palpable anarchy and disregard for established rules and structures gives Sharafi’s music an almost political dimension. The artist herself sees a political aspect to her work in breaking with conventional hierarchies. “For example, I devalue the hierarchies between individual musical elements, forcing a complete rethinking of the relationship between rhythm, melody and harmony,” she explains. Sharafi has also sought to free herself not only from widely accepted musical principles and genre boundaries, but also from the long-standing expectation that, as an Iranian artist she must be politically active.  

Visions of the future

Sharafi says: “As artists we are part of society, and at certain times I think it’s important to address the audience directly,” she says. “But in the end, almost everything is political in some way,” she adds, pausing briefly. “Even love. You have to be extremely privileged if politics doesn’t play a role in your life.” Today, she channels these emotions into her work. When she thinks of her homeland, Sharafi says she feels a deep melancholy. Yet, Iran remains a part of her life – just in a different, more positive way. And she has an outlet for this heaviness: her band project HUUUM. “Music gives me a chance to escape this melancholy.”  

Together with Omid Darvish and Álvaro Collao Leon, she founded HUUUM as a live project. The basis of the project is a collection of songs passed down over the centuries by different ethnic groups in Iran, often sung at events such as weddings and funerals. As with Sharafi’s own productions, a great deal of research goes into the project. On his self-titled debut album, for example, Darvish draws on the Kurdish musical traditions he grew up with, alongside Baluchi influences and lyrics sung in the old Tehran dialect. The three musicians don’t simply reproduce these traditions, however, but use them as a basis for extensive experimentation. “HUUUM is about the balance between originality and reinterpretation,” says Sharafi.  

The geographical distance of the Vienna-based trio also plays an important role. “How can you rethink folk music for the future or the present from a different place?” is how the electronic musician frames the central question of the project. She also emphasises that her involvement with these different musical traditions has led to deep reflection. “For me, it’s connected to hope.” Historically, the underlying musical material has survived dark times – times of war or mourning, for example. This is why the music conveys such a wide range of emotions – a feature that Sharafi finds particularly exciting. At the same time, folklore has always had a social function, bringing people together. “That is the really hopeful aspect,” says Sharafi. The music of HUUUM therefore looks to the future, which is also a key element for Sharafi.

Individual desires and community

Through HUUUM, Sharafi also explores her position as an Iranian diaspora musician. She describes her situation as “dislocated timeless folklore” – a state of being that offers hope for better times while maintaining a connection to her homeland, Iran. In Iran, with all the extreme challenges of everyday life, it’s difficult to have visions. Sharafi believes it is up to the diaspora to create new visions and ideas for a community. “How can we imagine a future?” she asks, stressing that it’s not unique for Iran. “Dislocated timeless folklore” can be found in many places.  

Rojin Sharafi’s signature piece for the Monheim Triennale, which she composed herself, is also about community and bringing people together. She collaborated with interdisciplinary artists, including lighting designers and four musicians. Sharafi describes her piece as follows: “In a non-linear time – somewhere between future, past, present, past, future – fragmented, criss-crossed, dream-like, unconscious, driven by desire, need and longing, history flows.” Once again, the artist plays with contradictions in her work. Her composition resembles a “surreal narrative with beings from different worlds”, manifesting personal and collective wounds, memories, and celebrations. 

Sharafi’s interest in timeless folklore – folk music that isn’t confined to the past but exists outside of time, be it digital, experimental or multi-layered – as well as customs and ceremonies, runs throughout the piece. “Folklore is music that has evolved over time, music that has accompanied people for generations, telling many stories and carrying countless emotions,” she explains. “For example, I’m fascinated by the concept of polymetry – the simultaneous occurrence of different metres in the different voices of a piece of music, a concept often found in certain West African and Indian musical traditions,” says Sharafi. “I work with patterns of varying lengths that sometimes collide, only to continue on their own path.” 

Playing with musical elements such as microtonality, polyrhythms, and polymetrics has always been a hallmark of Sharafi’s work. On her previous albums, as well as with HUUUM, these elements have been placed in new relationships with each other. In her signature piece, this approach is complemented by a renewed emphasis on performance and storytelling, which aligns with her ongoing work and interest in the performing arts and literature. She identifies “the interplay between individual desire and ceremonial collectivity” as the central theme and narrative core of the piece. The focus is on how the individual and their needs are situated within society. The narrative aspect is reflected in the recurring sound elements and the use of spoken word elements that are characteristic of her earlier work.  

The project also marks a return to her roots as a live musician. The focus is on the coherence of the piece as a whole, rather than its individual parts. “When I first started making music, it was very important to me that the tracks weren’t interchangeable, but that I played a set that was cohesive in itself,” explains Sharafi. Working on Monheim’s signature piece, she sees an opportunity to break away from this mindset. “The set should consist of several parts, but their logic must build on each other.” Sharafi therefore sees her signature piece as a dramaturgy that guides the listener through the experience, much like a visit to the theatre. She uses it to tell stories – about community, about needs, about solitude, and about togetherness in a world that no longer recognises borders.