In dark times, music and sound can go from seeming irrelevant or empty to becoming a lifeline. The artist Bernisaun from Tehran has been brewing music that can, in his words, “engineer the frequency of your well-being.” It’s healing for headphones. And I know almost everyone I know is going to need to turn to that at some point this week.
Just as internet shutdowns lifted, following the brutal repression of protests in Iran, Bernisaun (aka Behrouz Farahani) sent me the latest — a theta wave meditation. It’s worth visiting that alongside other recent releases, exploring dream worlds and analog inventions, in case pure frequencies aren’t what you need. I feel bad writing this now, because I know I can’t communicate with Tehran at the moment — there’s again a near-complete internet and communications blackout.
What I am hearing via friends in the music scene from their sporadic reports and translations is horrific — US and Israeli airstrikes are hitting residential areas and medical infrastructure, and the regime’s communications blackout means an inability to coordinate evacuations or aid. So yes, since this sound can’t really reach Iran’s interior, I hope it will be meaningful to someone from the diaspora who needs to take a moment.
Interpreting specific frequencies can quickly delve into pseudo-science, but it doesn’t have to. There’s a practical, active side, informed by the long history of meditation and sound through distinct identities in different cultures. For his part, Bernisaun offers up advice and safety information. (Sometimes, this kind of sound can trigger a panic attack, and there are precautions for anyone with a history of neurological conditions — but that’s where you might also want to explore the other sounds here.)
There is also scientific study that seeks to understand what’s happening inside the brain, even across the different experiences people may have. (Brains are not like machine learning models; we’ve learned you can use sound in predictable ways with AI, but our gooey, organic human minds are far more complex.) For instance, from the perspective of psychology, one peer-reviewed survey:
For all the horrible self-destructive patterns our minds can find, they seem evidently capable of plasticity and self-repair.
Bernisaun is not only producing pure theta tones, though. There’s also this otherworldly reflection on dreams, full of sounds of water, but also rotating, metallic rhythms that sound like they were traced by deep-sleeping neurons:
Or there’s the hypnotic, unfolding realm of delay Conflict. The Fibonacci sequence-spiral of that snail shell in the woods is a perfect image; that all sums up what this music is to me, even if it’s electronic. It’s electronic snail-and-forest music. It finds a sense of urgency, even an ominous one, but that can be centering, too. (“epic Arp” cuts off for some reason.)
I have so little to say at this point as the entire region is plunged back into violence, from Tehran to Beirut. There’s really very little this site or my voice can offer at this stage, I think, other than a break.
But you can try to keep your brain operating listening to at least one of these through headphones.
Also, if you want to assist communication in Iran, here are a couple of strong options:
Psiphon Conduit (runs as an app, on your computer or a phone — best a spare phone if you use the phone route)
Snowflake Tor (can run as a browser plug-in)
You’ll need to leave these on a while to see anything. During the protests, Conduit was working for me, provided I left it on an extended time — some bytes would move. Now, there’s nothing. But it’s worth switching on; I have it running on wifi on my Mac all the time. There’s nothing we can do to get packets in and out (unless you own some satellites); this is all about assisting access to the open internet and protecting data — once those packets are moving. So you use this with a lot of patience.
I think just as important as that is supporting our friends across the entire region who are concerned about loved ones and uncertain about the future. I know I feel that way, too, with even my smaller group of friends.
And meanwhile, later when the internet is up again, I look forward to saying to Behrouz that his music mattered in those moments.