Interview
Fields of Mist is the multidisciplinary embodiment of art created and curated by Marin-based Jahandar Hamidieh. Encompassing film photography and collage, ceramics, water color, broadcasting and most notably music production, Fields of Mist explores present possibilities, evoking nostalgia for imagined futures.
Last year, Fields of Mist appeared on Ilian Tape for the third time with the Secrets Of The Nebula EP - a 5-track voyage guided by Jahandar's carefully selected sonic devices. This follows his two previous releases on the label, the dank and cosmic Biospore Farmers (2024), & leftfield beat-tape Illuminated60 (2022). Additionally, Fields of Mist appeared at the recent Endzeit x Parameter Weekender in the Bay, performing live immediately before Om Unit.
As we take a closer look at Jahandar's body of work as Fields of Mist, it's a pleasure to clear away some of the fog permeating this enigmatic artist.
Looking at the collection of photo collages on Cargo Collective, I'm curious what these pieces capture in your eye. How are these perspectives changed through collage?
I have always been deeply inspired by landscapes, vast space, the shapes that earth, vegetation and water create in the distance. I think the scenery I was exposed to growing up in Santa Cruz influenced and inspired me unconsciously, especially the view looking out across the Monterey Bay.
Collage is sweet because you can reshape and transform images into new landscapes and incorporate hidden meanings and objects into your vision. It’s also a fun challenge to know how much to alter the source material, to know when to start and when to stop.
When approaching different mediums, what similarities exist across your artistic practices?
I think all of the mediums I work with are connected by many common threads…
Working with clay creates something physical and permanent but empty - a vessel for health. Painting is a meditation on nature and translating its beauty simplistically. And music making and listening is an emotional experience that plays on the invisible. All of these art forms are connected to the human experience and making art and music helps to process all of the mysteries of life.
I love to give the things I make to the people in my life. Whether it’s music, a small painting, teacup, or crystals I collect in the mountains - all these things connect the people in my life in a beautiful and small way. I think even by listening to my music you become a part of that global family and can share a bit of my world view in some way too.
How did preparing your live set for Endzeit x Parameter differ from producing in the studio?
It was a big learning process for me. The way that I produce my tracks in the studio is a destructive process so I never have the stems from tracks or a way to perform them. I have a lot of hardware all stacked up in my studio and each time I record it’s a new exploration with all that gear. I make a stereo recording of what I’ve got going and at the end I turn everything off and that jam disappears forever. It’s relieving to not be able to tinker with tracks endlessly.
When I got the invite I knew it would force me to learn how to transmute that process into a more portable and performable setup, one that I could recall live for the performance. The Analog Rytm MK2 has been a central part of my setup for the past few years and I decided it was time to finally learn how to chain patterns and kits inside that box for the performance. I have always used it like a sonic easel and less like a performance machine so there was a lot of deep diving in the weeks before the performance to learn how to use the performance features. I essentially made a bunch of grooves in the Rytm the week before the show and performed with that.
I also brought out a Tascam M-208 mixer, my TR-606 and a couple FX units to play around with - spring reverb and a few delays. It was pretty nerve wracking before performing because I had never performed music live on this scale at all and was doing so using the new techniques I had just learned with the Rytm.
Coincidentally today as I was writing this Parameter posted my set to their soundcloud - so if anyone is curious to listen back it can be found there.
I was so inspired by the passion and attention to detail from the Parameter and Endzeit people - I don’t go out to shows often but when I do, these are the ones I go to. It makes me want to come back even stronger for the next performance now that I know what to expect.
How does radio broadcasting fit into your artistic philosophy?
I like the organic nature of it. Each time I go to KWMR to broadcast my show it feels like a new and spontaneous experience. I generally don’t plan my shows out at all and I just play the music that has been inspiring me most that day or week. Sometimes I will have a few different tracks in mind and I will see how I can create a pathway from one track to another.
It’s liberating to have a late night slot, I feel like folks listening that late in the night must be up to listen to anything.
What enables you to create music that feels genuinely expressive?
Two things: environment and equipment. Having a nice space to work in is super important for me. Natural lighting, artwork, nice incense, tea, rugs, and the ergonomics of the studio are all important. Of course you can do without some of these things but in my spaces ideally they are present. I have also spent the past few years building a studio setup that feels intuitive to me so that I can immediately start experimenting when I want to make music.
Certain pieces of gear are pretty essential to my workflow and my sound, though these pieces change over time. I’m super nerdy when it comes to old gear and I have cycled through quite a lot in the past 3-4 years. Now I feel like I have percolated my stuff down to some essentials, pieces I know really well and some that I am still learning.
At the center of the space ship is my old Tascam M-320 mixer. It has awesome EQ’s with mid and low frequency shifters so I can really dial in the tone of all my sounds running through it and it has up to 7 FX sends so I can really get the most out of all of my effect units. The Korg SDD-1000 has been another recent inspiration - you can record a sample into it and pitch shift it instead of using it as a delay unit, then send it a trigger from the 606 for example. That has been the basis for a lot of tracks recently. I definitely have a thing for old delay units…
I still sequence everything from my Akai MPC-60 as well - that’s the brain of the studio. The layout of the midi sequencer is so simple and easy and I feel like I really know the machine in and out. Another piece I have been into lately is the Akai S01 sampler. It’s super cheap and simple - you can do barely anything with it but that makes it very easy and fun to use and it just sounds great when you transpose your sound down an octave or two. I bought one last winter in Amsterdam when I was staying a couple months at my friend Cedric Vermue’s studio. I finally found one locally a few months ago for a hundred bucks!
When I record I like to play with the effects and bring parts in and out via the mixer. I usually record a track in one take and then start fresh again and so on. It’s about being spontaneous and not dwelling on something for too long ( although sometimes this feels like a shortcoming - ideas often don’t get fully fleshed out.)
Across all mediums you have your hand in, what does artistic creation offer you?
Both of my parents are artists so I grew up doing different kinds of art from an early age. My mom ran an art camp for kids from our garage - the same space that would become my music studio many years later.
Artistic creation offers me some solace in this crazy world we are living in. It’s a way to contribute something positive, to create beauty - it’s important to do this even if it’s just for yourself. I never saw making art as a means to make money, it’s always something that has come fairly natural to me. Making art solely as a means to create more beauty in the world is also an act of resistance against the capitalist machine. (as cliché as this sounds it’s true..)
Creating art is also about world building and creating something new. I read a lot of old science fiction books and I am super interested in the idea of creating your own alternate future. That’s been the idea for the last two releases on Ilian tape - create a soundtrack to a story happening in the distant future - humans are forced to survive and cultivate an existence in a distant alien nebula - exploring and farming - living like ancient humans would have lived but in a distant and foreign environment. This could really come to pass someday! Unless we blow up the whole earth before space travel is invented…
How would you describe your mix? Did you have any particular intentions with these selections?
All tracks I made in the past year! I don’t have my turntables hooked up at the moment so I thought it would be fun to look back through all the unreleased material I have from the past year and select tracks from there. I have an ableton project called masterfiles! that I record all my tracks to and often older recordings don’t get revisited / exported from the project so there are many mystery recordings in there. I went back through a lot of the tracks in the project (about a hundred in there right now) and selected some interesting ones. Some are as recent as last week. There are also a handful of collaboration tracks in the mix recorded with friends in my studio. Hopefully some of these tracks will be released properly in the future but for now they are exclusively on the Peace Portal mix!
What's on the horizon for you?
I have another release lined up on Ilian Tape - very excited about this one. I believe it will be called intergalactic rose. This time on the ITX series again I think. I just heard from Marco today we will add one more track I made recently - it will be 6 tracks total.
I am also working on a label with some friends locally - it’s been a slow evolving process but it’s coming together. Myself and my friend Efe (aka Müzmin) I think will be the first release - split EP on vinyl we hope. We have a website already and some other digital infrastructure. I’m looking forward to sharing more details when we are ready.
I hope to play more live this year. Going to Parameter and Endzeit events is so inspiring - it makes me want to make more music with these types of parties and sound systems in mind and really dial in my live rig. I’d like to DJ more as well - I have only ever played vinyl and it’s time to figure out the CDJs.
Lastly, I am moving from Marin soon - ideally to the bay area (Berkeley or Oakland). This will bring me closer to most of my musical collaborators and will help kickstart the label and other musical projects. I’m considering renting an actual studio space for music making - somewhere that I could easily host folks to collaborate and share my equipment with.
Thank you so much for having me on Peace Portal!
Best,
Jahandar
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