Niyaz ( fa, نياز) is an
Iranian Canadian musical duo. The group was created in 2004
by
DJ, programmer/producer and remixer
Carmen Rizzo, vocalist and
hammered dulcimer player
Azam Ali
Azam Ali ( fa, اعظم علی) is an Iranian peoples, Iranian musician. As of 2013, she has released eight full-length albums with the bands Vas (band), VAS and Niyaz, as well as four solo albums.
Biography
She was born in Tehran on 3 October ...
, formerly of the group
Vas, and Ali's husband,
Loga Ramin Torkian
Loga Ramin Torkian ( fa, لوگا) رامین ترکیان))،(Born: September 23 ،1964) is a musician and the co-founder of the groups Axiom of Choice and Niyaz. Both groups incorporate Persian and Middle Eastern themes into their music. Tork ...
, of the Iranian crossover group
Axiom Of Choice
In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that ''a Cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty''. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection ...
. In 2013, Carmen Rizzo announced via Facebook that he was retiring from Niyaz.
"Niyaz" means "yearning" in
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
and
Turkish.
Niyaz's music, described as "mystical music with a modern edge",
is primarily a blend of
Sufi mysticism and trance electronica.
Niyaz adapts Persian, Indian and Mediterranean folk sounds, poetry and songs including the poetry of Sufi mystic
Rumi, with Western electronic instrumentation and programming.
Their
self-titled debut album, released in 2005, combined 13th century
Sufi and
poetry with "swirling, hypnotic beats".
Their 2008 follow-up album,
Nine Heavens
''Nine Heavens'' (Persian: , Noh behešt) is the second album of Iranian music group Niyaz, an acoustic electronic project. It was released on June 24, 2008 on Six Degrees Records.
The album is divided into 2 discs. One is the electronic version ...
, featured two discs; the second disc contained acoustic renditions of the tracks on the first disc.
Their third album, ''
Sumud'' (صمود), released in spring 2012.
A companion piece to the album, an
acoustic EP with six songs, was released 19 March 2013.
Lyrical sources
Though they have several songs with original lyrics, the bulk of their lyrics are derived from Persian and Urdu
Sufi poetry by the likes of
Rumi,
Obeyd-e Zakani,
Amir Khusrow
Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253–1325 AD), better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian ...
and
Khaju-ye Kermani, and folk songs from Iran,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
and other parts of the Middle East and central Asia.
The lyrics of their first two albums are almost exclusively in
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
, with the exception of a
Turkish song on
Nine Heavens
''Nine Heavens'' (Persian: , Noh behešt) is the second album of Iranian music group Niyaz, an acoustic electronic project. It was released on June 24, 2008 on Six Degrees Records.
The album is divided into 2 discs. One is the electronic version ...
, but their third album,
Sumud featured mostly Persian songs with two songs in Turkish and one each in
Palestinian Arabic
Palestinian Arabic is a dialect continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by most Palestinians in Palestine, Israel and in the Palestinian diaspora. Together with Jordanian Arabic, it has the ISO 639-3 language cod ...
and the
Kurmanji dialect
Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern S ...
of
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
.
Discography
Albums
* ''
Niyaz
Niyaz ( fa, نياز) is an Iranian Canadian musical duo. The group was created in 2004 by DJ, programmer/producer and remixer Carmen Rizzo, vocalist and hammered dulcimer player Azam Ali, formerly of the group Vas, and Ali's husband, Loga Ra ...
'' (2005)
* ''
Nine Heavens
''Nine Heavens'' (Persian: , Noh behešt) is the second album of Iranian music group Niyaz, an acoustic electronic project. It was released on June 24, 2008 on Six Degrees Records.
The album is divided into 2 discs. One is the electronic version ...
'' (2008)
* ''
Sumud'' (2012)
* ''
Sumud Acoustic EP
''Sumud Acoustic EP'' is an EP by Niyaz. Announced on September 20, 2012 as a companion piece to the 2012 album Sumud, the EP contains six songs, three of which are renditions of songs from Sumud.
Early announcements for ''Sumud'' suggested that ...
'' (2013)
* ''
The Fourth Light
''The Fourth Light'', released in March 2015, is the fourth full-length studio album by Niyaz, and their first since the departure of former bandmember Carmen Rizzo
Carmen Rizzo (born April 8, 1964) is an American record producer, mixer, progra ...
'' (2015)
References
External links
*
Iranian musical groups
Performers of Sufi music
American world music groups
Musical groups established in 2005
Six Degrees Records artists
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