New Compilation Gathers Vintage Pop Music From the Iranian Diaspora: ‘The Musical Depth of This Scene Sometimes Feels Unfathomable’

1979’s Iranian Revolution saw millions of citizens fleeing the state successful its aftermath. Amid this Iranian diaspora, galore of these radical emigrated to Los Angeles, with immoderate of them being the aforesaid radical who had contributed to pre-revolution Iran’s aureate property of entertainment.

Now, a caller compilation is putting a spotlight connected the philharmonic contributions of the artists and creators who formed this “Tehrangeles” scene. Out contiguous connected Discotchari, Tehrangeles Vice: Iranian Diaspora Pop 1983-1993 is a 12-track compilation released exclusively connected vinyl. The task gathers euphony made betwixt 1983 and 1993, with its sanction being a portmanteau of “Tehran” and “Los Angeles” and “Vice” nodding to the power that tv classical Miami Vice had connected the compilation.

In a statement, the project’s creators accidental the compilation sanction “underscores the illicit quality and daring circumstances from which Tehrangeles pop euphony was calved and compares its bequest wrong Persian media to 1 of the astir important crime–drama TV shows of each time. In the aforesaid mode that Miami Vice and its aesthetics had a dynamic interaction connected sonic, ocular and taste trends successful the United States and astir the world, Tehrangeles media was a daze to the systems of Islamic Republic ideology and Iranian expatriate communities.”

Available present here and connected Bandcamp, the compilation features 12 remastered tracks, lyrics and translations to each featured songs, images of each song’s archetypal cassette cover, a 20-plus leafage medium enactment booklet by subordinate prof of Ethnomusicology astatine the University of Toronto Dr. Farzaneh Hemmasi and more.

“We discovered this euphony a small much than a twelvemonth aft we moved into the North Glendale vicinity known arsenic the “Persian-Armenian” area,” the project’s co-creator Zachary Asdourian tells Billboard of the compilation’s origins. “Less than a artifact distant from our gathering is simply a precise unassuming store called Pacific Video that we would ever locomotion by but ne'er cheque retired due to the fact that of its sanction and the information that it was closed astir of the times we saw it.

“One day,” Asdourian continues, “we noticed photos of Viguen, Martik, Googoosh and different celebrated pre-revolution singers posted successful the window, truthful we yet decided to highest done and were met with shelves upon shelves of CDs containing Armenian, Persian, and different Middle Eastern / planetary euphony released passim the 1990s and 2000s.”

Inside the store, they discovered “shelves afloat of aged Persian movies and TV shows, produced successful Iran arsenic good arsenic Los Angeles, cassette tapes, vintage equipment, and different retro media that altogether gave the feeling of stepping backmost successful time. One of the archetypal things that caught our oculus successful the store was a CD transcript of Fataneh’s ‘Gol Va Atash’ album; aft buying that CD and listening to the breakbeat drum machines with sparkling synthesizers connected the way ‘Mola Mamad Jan; for the archetypal time, we had a gut feeling that determination was a batch much to discover.

After months of digging and learning much astir the artists, labels, and producers down the euphony done the internet, the creator absorption for Tehrangeles Vice became precise wide and we had hundreds of tracks compi...