Jasmine Golestaneh’s music as Tempers has always felt like it exists in some sort of electronic dreamstate, a unique middle ground between the futuristic pulsations of synth music and the weightlessness of dream-pop. Remarkably, that remains the case on her fourth album as guitar takes a prominent role on these songs, helmed by the record’s producer (and a psychedelic songwriter in his own right), Jorge Elbrecht. Delusion seems like the perfect name for a record that feels like a mirage from the moment it opens with an instrumental built upon ambient sounds familiar to anyone who’s ever been put on hold long enough that the outdated corporate muzak gets queued up.
It’s a revealing detail that Delusion came together during a period of flux, as the NYC-based artist flew back and forth between her hometown and LA to record the album. As Golestaneh tells us, several of the record’s lyrics were even written mid-flight, inspired by themes of perception and desire she encountered in literature and Buddhist writings. These ideas helped lay the groundwork for what was ultimately a highly collaborative multimedia project even beyond Elbrecht’s sound design that helps set Delusion apart from Tempers’ prior discography; she also enlisted the aid of writers and visual artists to help build out the world established by the album that includes writings by Estelle Hoy and a T-shirt line designed by Camille Henrot.
With the album out today, Golestaneh went into a bit more detail on how she took inspiration from experiences outside of the realm of music to craft her latest set of songs. Stream the record and check out her commentary below.
Los Angeles
I think cities have “muses” that shape the character of the art that’s made in them. I had written all Tempers’ previous albums in New York, where the energy invites a certain grit, chaos, and surrealism. I worked on the new album between New York and Los Angeles, which could explain its unhinged palette of worlds. LA’s muse is a different creature entirely. The sunlight is intoxicating, and seasonless living invites you to get lost in fantasies and highways that just go on forever because time doesn’t exist, and the sky is always promising.
Spirit Airlines
Spirit Airlines is the “dive bar” of air travel, and it was carrying me back and forth between these two cities. There is no in-flight entertainment—but that’s not important, as each flight has its own theater of the absurd hosted by passengers and crew. For instance, on a EWR-to-LAX flight, a man made repeated attempts to lie in the aisle on his belly and rotate himself like a sausage. I also love just staring out at fields of clouds; it never ceases to amaze me that I can sit in the sky. I wrote a lot of lyrics on these flights.
Buddhist philosophy
In Buddhist philosophy, delusion is considered one of the “three poisons”—which sounds pretty enticing. But really it’s seen as a basic condition of consciousness, a distortion in perception that, if left unchecked, can lead you to grasp at illusions until reality becomes a monstrous mirage. I’m inspired by this view of delusion, and I’m interested in the point where imagination goes too far and starts to consume you.
Annie Ernaux’s Getting Lost
In this book, Annie Ernaux takes desire to the most self-erasing point of obsession, and almost celebrates the human capacity to carry such intensity. Instead of pathologizing it into some variant of relationship dysfunction, she documents hunger and drowning as sensations in her body—symptoms of being alive. It’s brave, and acknowledges that life is messy and people are complicated.
Alexander McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis S/S 2010
This collection speculates a future where ecological catastrophe has caused humans to mutate into hybrid aquatic beings in order to survive. The idea of transformation forcing an altered state is very resonant with this album. I was particularly inspired by the iconic “armadillo” stiletto that is alien, reptilian, and wildly iridescent. Mirrored rainbow surfaces feel like a gateway to some transcendent realm, but of course they can also be a shiny trick. The stiletto inspired the texture of the vinyl album cover, which is made out of holographic mirror board.
