TEHRAN -- A haunting cello melody cuts through a somber bass background like a sharp saw biting into ancient, hardened wood. "Whip on a Lifeless Body," the dark opening track of "Coup of Gods," the latest album by Iranian composer and producer Mehdi Rajabian, plumbs the deepest meaning of music -- and may turn out to be the renegade Middle Eastern artist's last cry of protest.
"[In that song] we tried to create the suspended space of the earth and the sky," said Rajabian, who was listed among the world's top 10 rebel artists in a 2018 poll by the World Journalism Organization.
