Iran

It was in San Francisco during 1998 that singer and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Aites first shaped Iran into a bedroom project limited to four-track recording. Handling nearly every instrument on his own while calling on friends when necessary, he placed the band’s self-titled debut with Tumult, the label operated by Andee Connors of A Minor Forest, J Church, and Ticwar, in 2000. That record revealed Aites’ knack for weaving pop melodies through layers of noise and tape hiss, yielding a sound more accessible than the work of Dead C yet reminiscent of the lo-fi early-nineties aesthetic associated with Pavement, Smog, and Sebadoh. After moving to New York City, Aites issued the comparatively direct follow-up Moon Boys on the same Tumult imprint in early 2003. The endeavor then entered an open-ended pause once guitarist Kyp Malone entered the popular indie-rock outfit TV on the Radio and Aites turned his attention toward film projects undertaken with partner Audrey Ewell, among them the Norwegian metal documentary Until the Light Takes Us, which the two co-directed. Iran resurfaced in 2009 for its third and last album, Dissolver, which included contributions from Malone and production by David Sitek, likewise of TVOTR. Aites continued to build his documentary résumé, adding credits such as 2013’s 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, until Ewell disclosed in early 2016 that her partner had received a diagnosis of aggressive kidney cancer; Aites passed away in his sleep the following April.