Acousmatic Music with Kamran Shafii and CAEN (Gordon Ashworth)
Friday, November 20, 2026 · 8 PM – 11:30 PM
402 Washington St NE, Olympia WA
Kamran Shafii
Kamran Shafii (Persian: کامران شفیعی) is an Iranian sound artist working in the field of electroacoustic music. His recent work is characterized by its concern with anthropogenic sound and complex auditory experiences, drawing from his interest in psychoacoustics and acousmatic theory.
A primary focus of his practice is the study of acoustic ecologies through measurement devices and piezoelectric accelerometers, asking how infrastructure, distributed systems, and physical matter produce emergent, site-specific sounds with shifting morphologies.
Shafii has produced multichannel installations and performed internationally alongside artists including Lea Bertucci, Kevin Drumm, RM Francis, Daniel Menche, and Marcus Schmickler.
CAEN
Gordon Ashworth is an American musician and visual artist whose primary field is experimental composition for string instruments, field recordings and magnetic tape. He has been heavily involved in the experimental music underground since 2002, and has released dozens of drone, noise, folk and musique concrete recordings under the names Concern, Oscillating Innards, CAEN, Riverbed Mausoleum, and his given name. He was a guitarist and vocalist in Knelt Rote and member of the group Vile Horrendous Aerial Bombardment.
Ashworth has performed in over 30 countries, often during extensive and self-organized tours. His tour of Europe in late 2015 included 47 solo performances, with the majority of travel done alone by public transportation. His live performances focus on tape and speaker manipulation of electro-acoustic drones, string instruments, and field recordings, creating rich textures from contrasting elements of intimate musical sounds and social environments. His debut full-length “S.T.L.A.” (Orindal Records) is a deep exploration of the fundamental elements of American folk music, musique concrete, modern classical and abstract noise.
Gordon Ashworth is the head of the archival record label Olvido Records, which has released compilations of seminal musicians Markos Vamvakaris, Marika Politissa, Alexis Zoumbas, George Mukabi, Kalama’s Quartet, and others, and has presented the work of Greek guitarist Kostas Bezos (A. Kostis) in Athens and Thessaloniki. From 2019 to 2022, Gordon was co-owner of the Mississippi Records label, then based in Chicago, co-producing and designing roughly 30 LP and cassette releases, as well as running the distribution and warehouse. He has also run the cassette label Iatrogenesis Tapes since 2003, with over 70 releases focusing on underground noise and drone artists. He is also the brother of musician Owen Ashworth (Advance Base, ex-Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Orindal Records). Gordon Ashworth also runs the Sun Ra 7” reissue label SPACE KEY, and cassette label Illusophone.
https://olvidorecords.com/gordon-ashworth https://gordon-ashworth-5b2p.squarespace.com/gordon-ashworth
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