The long-awaited new Niyaz album just arrived! Nine Heavens is a 2-disc offering: one disc of their electronic updating of Persian-Turkish folk songs, the other disc containing unplugged versions of the same songs. I started with the unplugged disc and it's intense. Niyaz belongs to a much-needed but little-appreciated niche between New Age and world music. Imagine Persian music, slowed down slightly to groove to our American ears, with heavy African drumming. Or don't.
They're fronted by singer Azam Ali, the workaholic who for years made exotic, Middle-East-influenced electronica with the new age duo Vas. She's released two solo albums and her haunting voice was featured to great effect in the soundtrack to the movie 300. Loga Ramin Torkian, the composer from the mathematically-named world group Axiom of Choice, plays every instrument known to man with a string on it and would be the only saz player worth hiring even if he weren't Azam's baby daddy. Grammy-nominated electronic musician/producer Carmen Rizzo rounds out the lineup again. Let's hope they get nominated for this album and the Grammy doesn't go to Enya again.
The songs are Persian, Urdu or Turkish folk songs, updated for the 21st century with pounding drums and electronic effects. The lyrics on the first album were taken largely from Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi, but this time other poets like Khwaja Mir Dard (Urdu - 18th century) and Amir Khosrow Dehlavi (Persian - 13th century) get the trance rhythm treatment. Niyaz is the Persian (and Urdu) word for "need" or "yearning," symbolic of the mystic longing for one-ness with the Beloved, God, the Higher Self, Reality. So far the song that really stands out is "Ishq - Love and the Veil," from a poem by Khwaja Mir Dard:
I was the veil that hid the face of my beloved
Once awakened there was no longer a veil
Is mysticism inextricably religious? To many people religion is a set of rules and a conditioning machine. To me all religions originated in somebody's experience of the reality beyond the ego, no matter how they were misused after that. I believe the mystic poets when they say terms like "love" and "heaven" refer to realities hard to describe to us folks still in the prison of Shah's story (see my previous post). How ironic that I got this terrific album with an Amazon gift card from my atheist brother.
They're fronted by singer Azam Ali, the workaholic who for years made exotic, Middle-East-influenced electronica with the new age duo Vas. She's released two solo albums and her haunting voice was featured to great effect in the soundtrack to the movie 300. Loga Ramin Torkian, the composer from the mathematically-named world group Axiom of Choice, plays every instrument known to man with a string on it and would be the only saz player worth hiring even if he weren't Azam's baby daddy. Grammy-nominated electronic musician/producer Carmen Rizzo rounds out the lineup again. Let's hope they get nominated for this album and the Grammy doesn't go to Enya again.
The songs are Persian, Urdu or Turkish folk songs, updated for the 21st century with pounding drums and electronic effects. The lyrics on the first album were taken largely from Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi, but this time other poets like Khwaja Mir Dard (Urdu - 18th century) and Amir Khosrow Dehlavi (Persian - 13th century) get the trance rhythm treatment. Niyaz is the Persian (and Urdu) word for "need" or "yearning," symbolic of the mystic longing for one-ness with the Beloved, God, the Higher Self, Reality. So far the song that really stands out is "Ishq - Love and the Veil," from a poem by Khwaja Mir Dard:
I was the veil that hid the face of my beloved
Once awakened there was no longer a veil
Is mysticism inextricably religious? To many people religion is a set of rules and a conditioning machine. To me all religions originated in somebody's experience of the reality beyond the ego, no matter how they were misused after that. I believe the mystic poets when they say terms like "love" and "heaven" refer to realities hard to describe to us folks still in the prison of Shah's story (see my previous post). How ironic that I got this terrific album with an Amazon gift card from my atheist brother.
Sorry that the only videos available from this incredible group are over a year and a half old. Here's them performing "Allahi Allah" live. It's my favorite song off their first album. Even my bro could get behind some of the lyrics: "Walk the ways of Truth / Don't hurt another / Say the name of the One." Niyaz write that their hope is to "elevate the mass perception towards Iranians and people of Middle Eastern descent during such tumultuous times." I agree more people should be hearing their message.
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