Aaron Aites is a mysterious man. He released a pair of amazing, near masterpieces as Iran a few years ago — a self-titled collection in 2000 and The Moon Boys in 2002, both on tUMULt — then he stopped. He was busy working on a Norwegian black metal documentary, Until The Light Takes Us, which he’s since completed. For a time, it looked like Dead Oceans was releasing the new album Same Song Over And Over, but the MP3 links over there are dead and now it’s slated for release on Narnack. We still don’t know an exact date (Narnack just told us “sometime in October”), but Iran has a MySpace with three of the “new” tracks (they’ve been floating around for the last few years, but never in one place). Each is super. If you haven’t heard the old stuff, track it down — way noisier and fuzzed and lo-fi than this material. He made a conscious decision to up the production value, and while the song’s are still strong, there’s something even more beautiful about his tunes when you have to dig through a foot of feedback to get to the hook or heartbreak. Yes, Kyp Malone from TV On The Radio is in the band, but Iran is really the brainchild and obsession of Aites — and we’re glad to have him back.