After a period of problems with the authorities for his videos being shown on satellite televisions Ehsan Haghshenas’ second album will soon be released on Taraneye Sharghi, just like his debut album was two years ago. The 12-track “Tik Tik” features compositions by Benyamin and Maziar Fallahi, along with some arrangements by Payam Shams. Among others. It should be mentioned that the Shadmehr sound-alike Maziar Fallahi has in recent years built a fanbase for himself by singing highly sentimental themes for movies and series. In this album there will also be three duets with Fallahi.

I’m sure you’ve by now caught Sohrab and Tamineh, this Canada-based duo’s music videos on Bia2. One could think that it is fate that has brought these two young artists with related names from the Book of Kings (Shahnameh) together! Tahmineh who was the member of the third and final line-up of the girl band Silhouettt (even their record company forgets that it was spelled with three T!) ten years ago met Sohrab while he was in the process of recording an album with the help of Kaveh Yaghmaei, his friend and tutor. A collaboration took form and the album came to be called “Green Road”.

The eight track multilingual collection featuring a wide range of genres, from POP to SCHLAGER and ROCK-AMERICANA, has just been released. I really enjoy the nature of this collaboration, the marriage of their voices and the guitar-POP core of the music, however they need to work on the currency and consistency of their music and also the aesthetic presentation of their work (more press photos as an actual duo and professional artwork for the album cover, to start with). Their recent music videos bode a progress, however. For more information feel free to visit Sohrab’s website.

The Darkoob band have just released their self-titled debut album, featuring the actors Mehran Modiri and Hamed Behdad as vocalists, on Golchine Avaye Shargh. There are 10 tracks on the album of which 6 are instrumental music influenced by FOLK music from different provinces around Iran. There are also two vocal songs by Modiri and two songs by Behdad. It should be mentioned that the band also has Omid Hajili as member, but no longer Mohammad Reza Golzar.

Khashayar Etemadi who has spent his four past years in bitterness over the fact that the undergrounders have made him and his generation of 2nd Khordad singers to feel like has-beens and asked authorities to stop this decadence by granting him some position in an institution to scrutinise every artist for permits has now turned coat once again and come out with his brand new album “Baayad Be To Bargardam”. An album with 8 tracks which Etemadi has composed and produced together with Behrooz Saffarian and Rasoul Rasouli in 100% artistic agreement, according to himself. The album is sponsored by Mercedes Benz and released on the new label Nahale Roudaki.

You might have caught Neemeha’s music video on Bia2, Neemeha is an Iranian experimental POP-ROCK fusion band formed in Toronto by Behnam Jahanbeiglou (lead singer, guitarist and songwriter), Arshiya Basiri (drummer) and Behrouz Jahanbeiglou (percussions, clarinet and vocalist). The band seem to be receiving a positive feedback from the audience as they have reported sold-out venues in Canada, during this short time since their emergence.

They are now to release their debut album entitled “KOOK” (clever cover image!), which features 12 original songs with themes about peace, love and society. Neemeha explain that they have tried to create new melodies and modern harmony in their tunes, and by using traditional Iranian instrumentation they have aimed to add a different characteristic to their music. “KOOK” will be released on July 25, 2010 and distributed by MZM in Los Angles.

For more information feel free to check out Neemeha on their fan page on facebook.

Babak Jahanbakhsh who has just released his brand new 3rd album called “Ehsaas”, including the theme song “Panaaham Bede” from the motion picture “Do Khaahar”, was one of the stars to contribute to the religious “Hasht” collection. A collection which was not released around the birthday of Imam Reza as it was originally planned, due to permit issues. A delay which caused a conflict between the producers and IranGam that had bought the package to sell on the annual occasion. According to Moosighie Iranian Jahanbakhsh himself is currently in a financial dispute with the producer, Mansouryar, since he was invited to preform for free but the project which was supposed to be non-profit cashed in commercially!

After his dramatic stunt in the media Nima Varasteh has become the most demanding producer around and an equivalent to the likes of Timbaland, but within the Iranian industry, constantly demanding recognition to the extent of being mentioned in every single interview and having his photo on basically every one of his recent productions for other artists (pay attention to how he is in the foreground in all pictures)! His latest album for Askari basically became something of an embarrassment and now he is back with an album co-produced for a duo by the name of Sohrab Pakzad and Amir Tabari. The debut “Zire Baroon” has been marketed properly according to Varasteh and will become a success. An album which he already considers as his best work yet, in which he has once again been able to innovate. Sohrab and Amir are both composers who follow the trends in the Western music and contributed with their knowledge, he says. They also sound similar to each other so both sang all the songs and we later combined their voices as we saw it fit. Varasteh further says that they have produced the album together financially, something which he sees as new in the industry.

We gave its distribution to “Aavaaye Parsian”, which is a serious company that normally deals with classical music. On the duo’s website you can read, after paragraphs of paid dues to Varasteh, a rather bold (in lack for better word) claim that their “Zire Baroon” which was originally released (underground?!) four years ago is the first Iranian HOUSE production ever (you basically must have lived under a rock somewhere, or in Varasteh’s studio, for the past half a decade in order to buy that!lol). Time has proved that future collaborations with Hamid Askari and Sohrab & Amir is wise and possible, Varasteh says, something I am more than happy to continue. Its noteworthy that Sohrab and Amir have already had their debut concert in Tehran.

Ali Ashabi is the latest undergrounder to go legal! According Farzad Farzin the delay in the release of the album has been caused by the album’s leakage which in itself caused confusion for Ershaad. However Ashabi recently appeared together with other stars on a religious compilation which according to rumours secured his position as legal. Entitled “To Raast Migi” the album features 12 tracks and is released on IranGam. What’s interesting is that this album features works by domestic artists who have been suspended indefinitely from artistic activities, mainly due to their collaboration with LA-artists. Taraneh Mokarram, Roozbeh Bemani and Elias Shirzad are those whose works are credited by pseudonyms! However it is not clear which pseudonym belongs to whom!

Dariush has just released his brand new album entitled “Donyaaye in Roozaaye Man” along with a LIVE DVD. You can get them separately or as combo set from Dariush’s official website. Please go to Dariush2000.com for further information.

“Pomegranates” is an independently released V/A compilation with selected Iranian POP tunes from the 60’s and 70’s. The compilation is rather narrow and repetitive in its selection and not as representative of its time as this Western review on it likes to believe that it is! But the fact that this guy has given it so much time and attention is really cool, check it out!

Note: thanks to Siamak

Farzad Farzin’s brand new album is released. “Shaans” features 11 tracks, including work by Yaghma Golroee, Pedram Keshtkar, Mehran Khalili, Kooshan Haddad, Amin Bamshad, Maryam Asadi, Ali Mehregan and Navid Sepehr. The collection also features a controversial collaboration with the underground artist Hamed Hakan! Released on the new record label Chehreye Khandan.

Mohsen Chavoshi’s second legal album “Jacket” was released a few days ago right on schedule. At the same time the Tehran town council’s news agency SHAHR announced that Mohsen Chavoshi will be one of the off-contest performers in this year’s Fajr Music Festival. However so far neither the artist nor the arrangers of the festival have confirmed such news! Mohsen Chavoshi has in the past avoided giving concerts while rejecting the rumor about him being afraid of exposure of any inability to sing live!

Note: thanks to Mansour J.

I’ve written about Sheri (Shahrzad) Nowroozi in the blog before, the young and talented Sweden-based songstress. Her debut album “First Sign” received a low-profile release last week and it was purely coincidental that I discovered it in the store today. I was browsing the shelves and happened to pick up an album filed under “s” when I spotted Sheri’s eye-catching cover underneath it!

The album is beautifully designed (thank God for that!) with the name written lipstick-style on the jewel-case! “First Sign” comes even in a $200 limited edition necklace/USB flash-drive designed and sold by Yvone Christa! “First Sign” features even the theme track from the recent Swedish blockbuster “Snabba Cash”.

“First Sign” features a blend of POP and R&B with a pinch of oriental influences (listen to Sheri herself telling you more about it). Including a progressive remake of Sade’s classic “Smooth Operator” produced by Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus, spiced with a beat that to me sounds like derived from Duran Duran’s Bond theme “View to a Kill”!

and finally an unplugged performance …

http://www.thisissheri.com/

http://www.myspace.com/officialsheri

Farzad Farzin has released a teaser for his upcoming album “Shaans”. I only hope that the Jackson opening is meant as some kind of loose homage reference … or something not-so-serious! Gotta say that the teaser just like the song medley promises a lot of style and less substance!

Note: thanks to Richard.

Ali Lohrasebi’s “14″ was finally released last week. But even though the album’s track list has 14 tracks listed, as promised, there are only 13 songs on the album! The title-less track 13 is apparently absent in reality, my guess is that it is in accordance with the superstitious tradition of not writing the actual number 13 on hotel-rooms but rather 12+1, or not having a 13th floor at all but directly skipping to the 14th floor! In a way trying to skip bad luck in an illogical and mathematically impossible way! Anyways, the album is produced by Behrouz Saffarian with whom Ali recently reconciled. Beside compositions and arrangements by Saffarian the album features work by the Ghannadi brothers (7th Music Band, by the way I just noticed that they had also created for Farzad Farzin’s “Shock”), Reza Sadeghi, Mohsen Yeganeh, Shahab Akbari, Rouzbeh Bemani, Abdoljabbar (on a funny side-note talk about jaw-filling name! Had it been the middle-ages this name alone would have sent shivers down anyone’s spine!lol) Kakayi, Mona Borzouyi, Mehdi Yarahi and Parnian. “14″ features the HIT theme-song from the popular TV-series “Delnavazan” and a duet with Saffarian, it also comes in two types of packaging.

To celebrate the birthday of Imam Reza a brand new compilation is released. This various artist compilation is the first of its kind since its popularity peak during the rebirth of POP music back in 1997. Entitled “Hasht (8)” it features eight artists who each preform their homages to the eight Imam of the Shiites. Hami, Mohsen Chavoshi, Reza Sadeghi, Reza Yazadani and Ali Ashabi are the more famous stars in the line up. I have previously approached the religious POP phenomenon in the blog and the tributes to this particular holy icon in several LA-artists’ album reviews.

At the same time Benyamin Bahadori’s manger Rajabpour announced that he will be releasing a two-track single with both songs praising the eight Imam. There have been rumors about Benyamin creating an entire collection for holy icons, which is boosted by this recent announcement. This is not the first time Benyamin and his lyricist Farid Ahmadi have been creating religious POP hymns!

Hamid Askari’s follow up to the successful debut “Coma” is finally out after months of postponing. The album shares the same arranger as Benyamin’s “85″ and that is to be noticed in many songs’ resemblance and elements’ recycling! It’s not unusual with such kind of sequels in Western world of music in order to mark a return to a certain theme and style, however not as a direct follow up to a debut! “Coma 2″ even shares the cover design of its first part.

Following the recent medial attack by Sirvan on Reza Sadeghi’s professionality, the Khosravi brothers (Sirvan and Xaniar) have created an album for a Sadeghi sound-alike by the name of Behnam Safavi! The second song from the album, the title-track, has turned rather popular and created a buzz for this debut.

Note: thanks to Ahmad

After his successful performance together with Golshifteh Farahani and in association with filmmaker Babak Payami in Venice, around the time and place of the 66th Venice International Film Festival, Mohsen Namjoo is to release his brand new album “Aakh” in early October. The album is his third official release and his second offering outside Iran. The first exile album which was released and sold on Namjoo’s official website was “Jabre Joghraafiaa“.

Note: photo courtesy of Babak Payami

Helen has released her new album “Fasle Man”, with a horribly designed cover! You can also buy a COMBO edition with a DVD of four music videos. Released on a (to me) new record label Top records.
http://musicboxla.com/hefamancd.html