Persian psychedelic dub trio Dastgâmachine consists of Mahmood Schricker (electric setar), Caleb Klager (electronics), and Jason Rule (turntables). Together, they perform a unique form of psychedelia, incorporating the sounds and production techniques of dub, techno, and musique concrète into the Dastgâ system of arranging classical Persian art music. Part of the city’s vibrant global electronic music underground, Dastgâmachine honed their sound through their monthly “Infinite Jest” residency at Tapestry in Kensington Market. Their debut self-titled EP was released in February 2025 through Mahmood’s label, Link Music Lab.
Dastgâmachine will be opening for grindcore theatre quintet Sleepytime Gorilla Museum on May 14 at St. Anne’s Parish Hall. In anticipation of the show, Dastgâmachine has thoughtfully curated a playlist of inspirations, peers, and their own tracks. Explore a range of music, from tar improvisation to dub techno to Bangladeshi folk!
All links below lead to Bandcamp or similar where you can purchase the music directly. Don’t forget to SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL RECORD STORES AND INDEPENDENT OUTLETS!
MOUDY’S SELECTIONS
Dastgamachine – Shahnaz [2025]
This is based on improvisations from the master tar player Jalil Shahnaz. The sequence of setar melodies match the original version played by Shahnaz but through the machine of the Dastgamachine trio.
Khidja – Aura [2018]
Khidja has always been Moudy’s inspiration in terms of their electronic music taste. First heard this track on Lena Willikens set he later took that melody and used it on Radio Dreams soundtrack on the track “Radio Dreams Ending”.
Mahmoud Schricker – Call It Love [2018]
This track was inspired by 3 different songs. The beat was inspired by Yello – Sometimes (Dr Hirsch) and sample from the voice of Shah Ebrahimi (the Kurdish sufi singer) and the melody of Iran’s pop icon Shahram Shabpareh – Paria.
Rhythm and Sound – What A Mistry [1997]
This is the inspiration behind the beat of Mahmood’s track Zolfonoon.
This Heat – Twilight Furniture [1979]
A group that your favourite band likely took influence from with varying degrees of directness. Their debut is a tempest of drones and groans (Testcard), doubletime neurosis (Horizontal Hold), operatic terror (Not Waving), collapsing drum freakouts (Rainforest), flanged-out proto-jungle (24 Track Loop) – Twilight Furniture is percussive enough to be danceable while making you feel on the edge of a bad trip. Not hard to guess why this album has been on heavy rotation as of late.
CALEB’S SELECTIONS
Model 500 – Starlight [1995]
One of my favourite tracks from the originator, Juan Atkins. Was lucky to see him for the first time live in Detroit last spring and I will never forget it. This track in my mind sounds similar to a lot of dub techno tracks from this same era with its washy chord stabs, but also still jackin’ with its swung bassline and hihats. Classic.
Basic Channel – Quadrant Dub I [1994]
Basic Channel was my first introduction to Dub Techno and launched my deep dive into dub in general as well. I’m also a big fan of longer tracks, and this one develops at the perfect pace.
Robert Hood – Home [1994]
Robert Hood’s Internal Empire is played at home at LEAST once a week. This album is one of my all-time favourites, I draw lots of inspiration from his minimal approach. Always a good reminder that less is more, which I constantly try to remind myself.
Heiko Laux – Sense Fiction Pt. 2 [2000]
I actually heard this track for the first time during one of my YouTube crawls for DJ sets, this time rinsed by Etapp Kyle in 2018. I’ve always loved the lopsided kick drum pattern on this one, so driving. Also wait for that keyboard line!
Jan Jelinek – Rock in the Video Age [2001]
The subdued, relenting kick drum juxtaposing this amorphic, grainy amoeba of sound is what stands out to me here. This track always reminds me to try weird things, and then mix in a kick drum and see what happens.
JASON’S SELECTIONS
Dariush Dolat-Shahi — Zahâb [1983]
Absolute brain-warper from the Tehrani composer made in the depths of the storied Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center – and premiered at Carnegie Hall, with setar and tar processed and layered over liquid ambience and warbling synth arpeggios.
Lloyd Miller – Gol-e-Gandom [1968]
One of the earliest examples fusing traditional Persian music with jazz instrumentation, recorded in Utah by the late multilinguist, anthropologist, and host on Iranian television in the 70s. Original copies sell for over $1000 on Discogs.
Raf Reza — Dubfoot [2018]
Cascades of bleep and drifting propulsion from our dear friend and fellow local cosmonaut Raf Reza, for the worldbuilding Glasgow label 12th Isle. His album Ekbar (for local powerhouse Telephone Explosion) is an incredible synthesis of Bangladeshi folk traditions and low end mutations, absolute mindbender. (He’ll soon be doing a remix for us as well!)
Saffron Bloom – Curtain Call [2025]
Our friend Sepehr put on a new hat that channels a very specific sonic palette indebted to trip-hop and illbient that a lot of us born/raised in the late 80s/early 90s were exposed to often unknowingly at that formative age, in the vein of Delerium, Scorn, and the compilations that cost $50-60 you’d find sold at designer furniture stores.
Slowpitchsound – Deeper Spaced [2011]
Cheldon Patterson is a local stalwart of turntablism and musique concrète, with works spanning audio walks, installations, soundtracks, and pieces heavily indebted to our immediate environments. One of the first works I heard using turntable-as-instrument, not just playback device. This one I first heard when I was living in Leeds in college in a brutalist post-war campus in a faded industrial powerhouse regenerating itself as a creative capital at the beginning of this a austerity wave in 2011/12. You’ll have seen the campus on the artwork of the legendary Warp 10 compilation series that broken many brains (and introduced me to many staple artists), many a lecture was spent in the philosophy building in an inscrutable Logic 201 course with a 100% 3-hour unseen exam as the deciding factor. Suitable sonics for all that.
BONUS MIXES
Mahmood Schricker – Days Of Steam
Last year Moudy graciously made a beautiful mixtape for my Days Of Steam podcast series. I try to invite artists who aren’t DJs, or DJs who want to present something that isn’t like what they are normally seen for, or booked to play. Approaching a mixtape from outside the usual DJs perspective has always yielded some of the most interesting results for me: Moudy’s work with soundtracks and modern classical gives this one a different usage and flow of melody that I’m used to, stringing together some of his works with spiritual jazz and classical musics from Belgium, Germany, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, outer space, and Greenwich Village.
Caleb Klager + Vanese Smith – Arc + Texture (live at MUTEK)
Caleb has always astounded me with his veracity in techno and his range on bass, he’s played with a number of different duo/trio ensembles over the past few months that all have their own unique sense of space and weft. This performance of his live at MUTEK with Toronto legend Vanese Smith (Modelic Arts/Pursuit Grooves) was the world premiere, on a hot August day in a concrete void surrounded by new build condos, early 80s postmodernism, and throngs of techno-tourists and new McGill students. Of course my camera died so I never got footage, but hearing it in retrospect you get why it sounds like they’ve been playing together for years.
Jason Rule – Playing Out Of Time
Alongside my monthly N10.AS show in Montreal (now recorded in my bedroom on two turntables and a janky mixer, as the good lord intended), I’ve been hosting a Friday afternoon show twice a month (4-6 PM) for New York staple East Village Radio – named after the slogan/ethos of Toronto label Séance Centre – that I’m trying to use more as a “traditional” show with guests and interviews, more in the style of Beats In Space where I actually get on the mic and talk, although not as much as I probably should when it’s just me. Guests have included Amelia Holt (Honey Trap), Chamberlain Zhang (COSMISM), Loomer (Hi-Note), and Tony Price (Maximum Exposure) – half the time I keep the mics on low to pick up the street noise and life that’s omnipresent. Usually at least 2 or 3 passersby stop to take photos or ask what it’s all about and how they can get involved. I’ve been involved in independent radio for 15 years now and this is the most interest I’ve seen in it / broadcasting / alternatives to the mainstream from the general public in that time.