Rock and alternative music in Iran

Iranian music: Topics
Iranian rock and alternative Iranian Heavy Metal
Persian traditional music Persian Symphonic Music
Iranian Rap Kurdish music
Iranian folk music Persian pop music
Languages Persian, English, German
Awards Tehran Underground Music Festival
Charts none
Festivals Tehran Underground Music Festival
Iranian Online Rock Radio Stations Zirzamin
Online Media Iranian underground music wikia,Iran rock portal,Iran rock news,Tehran Avenue, Zirzamine, Cafe Tehran, Blues Bazar
Major Iranian musicians
Niyaz– Kaveh Yaghmaei– Kourosh Yaghmaei– AngbandMeeraO-HUM– Abjeez– ArashkVasBaradLalehKioskBuddaheadShahin and SepehrAgah BahariHypernova

Iranian rock (Persian: راک ایرانی) is a form of rock music that is largely produced in Europe and Tehran's underground circles, and is rising to challenge "Tehrangeles pop", which has dominated the popular music genre of Iran for decades.

Iranian rock is almost entirely in Persian language. There are however musicians of Iranian descent both inside and outside Iran that produce their rock music in languages such as English or German. Iranian rock has its roots in American rock, British rock and German rock, but has its own distinctive elements mixed in to create a homegrown class of sounds and melodies, whether progressive, hard, or heavy metal. There has been many movements since mid 90s.

Contents

[hide]

History

Rock music in Iran inspired by remarkable events like Shiraz Arts Festival and bands like Pink Floyd, Camel, and Eloy, has its beginnings in the 1970s with musicians such as Kourosh Yaghmaei. The 1979 Islamic revolution did not allow this musical genre to survive long. Ayatollah Khomeini banned rock music, inspiring The Clash to write Rock the Casbah.

During the late 1990s president Mohammad Khatami advocated a more open cultural atmosphere in his domestic policies, Iran came to witness a unique blossoming of an indigenous breed of Rock and Heavy metal musicians. What separates this movement from its Tehrangeles pop counterpart is the young age group and the fact that it is almost entirely homegrown, and mostly underground.[1]

Public open live concerts are heavily restricted by the government. Most rock bands however can obtain permission to perform on stage live, provided their music is purely instrumental. A typical example of what is tolerated is the performance of the Metal band Kahtmayan in Kish, Iran.

In July 2005, for the first time, a music production company in Canada by the name of Bamahang Productions released an album from Kiosk,another homegrown Iranian Rock band, called Adameh Mamooli (Ordinary Man), and succeeded in adding it to the iTunes Digital Music catalog, making the Underground Rock Music album to be available for digital download from iTunes. In December 2005, the same company managed to finally release the 2nd album from O-Hum entitled Aloodeh.(polluted)

The contemporary scene

Within a few years after the launch of Tehran's underground scene in the late nineties, some bands started superimposing the poetry of Persian literature such as Hafez in their lyrics on top of classical western rock tunes and melodies, and peppered with sounds of traditional Persian music.[2]

Among the bands in this movement, the rock band O-Hum was permitted to play in freely mixed sex concerts for Christian minorities in Tehran.[3] Today, there were underground competitions and music critics writing of these bands. Occasionally the government allows rock concerts to take place under strict conditions.[4] Music with English lyrics has been performed by bands such as Barad.

One of the most important events in Iran’s heavy metal scene happened in 2008 when power metal act Angband signed with German label Pure Steel Records.[5] Its believed they are the first Iranian metal band to release their work internationally through a European label.[6]

They released their debut album Rising from Apadana in 2008 and they collaborate with the well-known producer/ sound engineer Achim Kohler (Primal Fear, Amon Amarth) for the production of their second album Visions of the Seeker that came to life in October 2010.[6]

Awarded by Cannes Festival in 2009 No One Knows About Persian Cats [7] a film by Bahman Ghobadi revealed the legal challenges and obstacles young musicians in Iran have to face where government is severely confined.

Rising Faces in Iranian Rock/ Metal Music

The following samples a list of homegrown Iranian rock bands, mostly active in Iran. Some are approved by the government, other continue to operate underground because of the restrictions imposed by The Ministry of Islamic Guidance.

Iranian rock record labels

See also

References

  1. ^ Asharq Al-Awsat: "Iran's Underground Music Revolution". Accessed May 27, 2007. Link: [1]
  2. ^ Tehran Avenue: Link
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ The Iranian. Link: [3]
  5. ^ Blabbermouth link June 2008
  6. ^ a b c Blabbermouth link August 2010
  7. ^ http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10865364/year/2009.html
  8. ^ Martin Hodgson, The Guardian (Apr 22, 2007)
  9. ^ Review by New York Post, July 2004.
  10. ^ Review by Washington Post, July 2004.

External links