SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The new album "Tehrangeles Vice" is a daring collection of Iranian disco and synthpop recorded in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAHROKH SONG, "MAN VA TOU")
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The term Tehrangeles refers to the Iranian American diaspora in Los Angeles and the music on this album. It was born when Iranian musicians fled their country after the revolution and joined up with an already vibrant music scene in LA.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAN VA TOU")
SHAHROKH: (Singing in non-English language).
SUMMERS: The story of this collection begins in Glendale, California.
ANAIS GYULBUDAGHYAN: There was this store on the corner that we keep passing by. I noticed the picture of Vigen who was a famous Armenian - Persian Armenian singer. And I was like, maybe we should go check it out. He was selling, like, DVDs and CDs and cassettes and just everything Armenian, Persian, some Arabic music. It was just all over the place.
SUMMERS: Anais Gyulbudaghyan runs the record label Discotchari with her partner, Zachary Asdourian.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUSAN ROSHAN SONG, "NAZANIN")
ZACHARY ASDOURIAN: I would go in there on a weekly basis, pull a stack of 50 or so CDs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NAZANIN")
SUSAN ROSHAN: (Singing in non-English language).
ASDOURIAN: When you listen to these songs, it's truly incredible how they were able to reinterpret the sonic trends of the '80s and '90s and turn it into a Persian pop song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ESHGHEH MAN")
FARZIN: (Singing in non-English language).
DETROW: To understand the context of this music, you have to rewind a little to music in Iran before the Revolution.
FARZANEH HEMMASI: If you were walking down the street in Tehran, you might be able to hear a pretty wide variety of music - so music imported from the U.S., so some disco, some rock and roll - but you would also hear a lot of local music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POL")
GOOGOOSH: (Singing in non-English language).
HEMMASI: I'm Farzaneh Hemmasi, and I'm an associate professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto. Some of that local music sounded a lot like the rock 'n' roll that had been imported but with Persian lyrics or more likely sounded something like, if you think about The Carpenters - like, that kind of smooth 1970s, very well, heavily produced, lots of musical instruments, lots of, like, fancy arrangements, string sections, horn sections and Persian-language lyrics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POL")
GOOGOOSH: (Singing in non-English language).
DETROW: All of that changed with the coming of the Iranian Revolution. Once the new regime took power in 1979, it condemned pop music as frivolous, even dangerous, and women were outlawed from appearing as solo pop artists. It's still that way today.
SUMMERS: So musicians fled and many landed in LA, where they worked alongside LA hitmakers and musicians.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RHYTHM OF LOVE")
BLACK CATS: Dance to the rhythm of love, dance to the rhythm of love, dance to the rhythm of love.
HEMMASI: You needed a network of physical studio spaces. You had all these session musicians who were just gigging constantly, and you needed to all be in the same place. And Los Angeles was that, and it also had this infrastructure and personnel for music videos. When I and, I think, other people think about this Los Angeles-y, "Tehrangeles" pop music, all of those things are together. It's like a VHS tape, you know? It's a cassete tape. It's a VHS tape.
SUMMERS: And cassette tapes were a big part of the story. They were portable and, more importantly, easy to copy.
HEMMASI: Really famously in the Iranian Revolution, they play a role in spreading Khomeini's revolutionary sermons. The same thing could happen and did happen with popular music. Their music got there. All you need is one cassette.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAHRAM SHABPAREH AND SHOHREH SOLATI SONG, "GHESMAT")
DETROW: As Hemmasi writes in the liner notes, music in the Islamic Republic was treated like an illegal drug. It was criminalized, distributed by dealers. And in the case of these "Tehrangeles" recordings, it was smuggled across international borders, bringing dance beats, female stars and stories of love to listeners in Iran.
ASDOURIAN: The song "Ghesmat" by Shahram and Shohreh - it's about two star-crossed lovers. They didn't talk, and now the moment is lost forever, and they may never see each other again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GHESMAT")
SHAHRAM SHABPAREH AND SHOHREH SOLATI: (Singing in non-English language).
ASDOURIAN: On the surface, while these lyrics sound cheap and unthoughtful to Iranian diaspora audiences, for citizens in the Islamic Republic of Iran, these lyrics are speaking to the simplest of desires and fantasies that they aren't able to have.
SUMMERS: Zachary Asdourian speaking about the new album "Tehrangeles Vice." It's out now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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