V/A- Persian Underground: Garage Rock, Beat and Psychedelic Sounds from The Iranian 60's & 70's Scene (Persianna, 2010)

"[An] Amazing collection that gathers some of the rarest Persian 45s, totally unknown outside of Iran until now. Here you'll find an eclectic mix of styles, from garage nuggets to cool Persian beat, exotic rock&roll and prog/psych. Featuring female drummer & singer Zangoleah with some killer garage / rockin' tracks, obscure bands like Takkhalha doing a fab cover of the Stones 'Play With Fire' and an amazing take on the Persian traditional song 'Mastom, Mastom', Golden Ring-styled beat by Big Boys, exotic Persian beat by Saeed and Tigers, terrific garage-beat by Ojubeha and the two sides of the Kambiz 45, probably the major discovery from Iran in the recent years and one of the few, if not the only truly Persian prog/psych 45s ever recorded. Remastered sound, liner notes and pictures."

I must opine that "amazing" is sort of off-the-mark for this comp. Believe me, I wanted it to be...And while it has its moments, the selection is far too bizarre to fully qualify. Although the handful of garage rave-ups definitely appeal to my own voracious appetite for rare psych-beat, almost none are out-and-out amazing. 2 or 3 of them, maybe. And the inclusion of the easy-rock prog stylings of Kambiz is completely mystifying. Beyond their perhaps apparent rarity, those songs seem to make no sense on this comp. They ruin any semblance of coherence or flow, they're pretty weak and, in all honesty, they just plain give me the weirds. But, hey, don't take my word for it...



Download Link: V/A- Persian Underground: Garage Rock, Beat and Psychedelic Sounds from The Iranian 60's & 70's Scene (Persianna, 2010)