Towards the end of the summer, we were informed that in order to enroll in Nikan’s middle school, we were to pass an entrance exam. This would be similar to our previous finals although all questions would be multiple-choice. There wasn’t much studying to do given the vast amount of material that it covered so the best option was to simply go with what we had learned and knew. The morning of the exam I was dropped off rather early and as I stood in the schoolyard scoping out the new environment and the few students- all new - already there, one of them seemed familiar to me. Apparently the feeling was mutual as he looked at me and waved me over. It was Bijan. I hadn’t seen him in about a year but we picked up where we had left off. We talked about all of the people we had known (I told him Hamid was also attending this school to which he responded, “The vomit guy?”) and funny things that had happened to us in the past which in itself completely eased any tension we were feeling prior...
Yasmine Dubois, known professionally as Lafawndah (also known as KUKII) is not like 50 other artists within a one-mile radius. Her music draws from wildly unpredictable influences – devotional songs, ambient electronica, the British singer Sade, Iranian folk music and the films of Robert Altman have each had their moment – and refracts them through her own experimental pop sensibilities. She was born in Paris to an Iranian mother and an Egyptian father. She grew up in Paris and Tehran and is now based in London. Lafawndah’s lyrics are deceptive. Take Town Crier from Tan, which sounds as if it might be about an abusive relationship. In some ways it is, but the relationship is instead between a state and its citizens, inspired by her experience of returning to Iran in 2011 around the time of the Green Movement protests. “I want songs to start with intimacy and then as you listen you begin to understand there is more at play,” she says. “It’s hard to suddenly go into bi...