Kiosk make headline news for Iranian rock
- 10 years ago
Kiosk are an Iranian rock group you may soon be hearing a lot from.
Suppressed for years by Islamic State, they left Iran in 2006 for Northern America and are now playing tours on both sides of the Atlantic.
By any measure, they have come a long way since they had to secretly meet in caves to avoid being discovered by agents of the regime.
“We didn’t imagine ourselves anywhere,” says Arash Sobhani, founder of the group.
“We didn’t have any plan to put out an album, in the beginning it was just about getting together with friends. We didn’t want to leave the country at that time; and I knew we’d never be allowed to make the album we wanted. We just recorded things for fun, that’s all, we didn’t expect all this. Back then we had no plan to get our material out, and personally I didn’t want to release an album,” adds Sobhani.
Although the group’s members have been living in New York and Toronto for nearly ten years, their music is still rooted in the political, cultural and social issues affecting people’s daily life in Iran.
Composer and pianist, Ardalan Payvar said: “I can’t say that we were more or less influenced by Iranian society compared to our previous albums. ‘Adama mamoli’ is inspired by Iranian society so you could also say that rock has returned on our latest album, in my mind, we’ve always been inspired by Iran.”
Kiosk is a rare example of an Iranian underground group that’s succeeded by leaving the country to produce their music. But they don’t consider themselves mainstream in any way.
Despite being geographically far from their main audience, the group says the world is now a small place thanks to the internet, which gives them hope of staying around longer in the public eye.
“When we started our work there was a revolution in the world of communication that gave us the possibility of being heard. Fifteen, twenty years ago there was no iTunes, no internet. Now the net is available for independent groups. When we started, there was the possibility to go far with our music; plenty of groups before us did. They were musically very sound but today no-one’s heard of them,” says Sobhani.
1.49 Kiosk c’est un des rares groups “underground” qui a pu réussir leurs pari en quittant le pays et produire de la musique. le succès de kiosk, en tant qu’un des premiers groupe underground en Iran, encourage beaucoup des jeunes chanteurs et chanteuses iraniens d’aujourd’hui. les membres de kiosk sont bien placé pour parler et expliquer les problèmes et les obstacles qu’un groupe de rock iranien doit se confronter…
l’internet est un outil qui vient à l’aide des groupes de musiques qui ont une facon illegale, selon la loi de la république islamique, produire leurs musiques. grâce à Internet les groupes peuvent se faire connaître dans le monde entière, sans passer par l’autorisation du gouvernement. Arash Sobhani connaît les difficultés des musiciens qui ont du se taire pendant les 15 premiers années après la révolution de 1979,
Kiosk a fait un tour dans les villes européennes comme londrès, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich,...ils seront à new york le 28 septembre…
Suppressed for years by Islamic State, they left Iran in 2006 for Northern America and are now playing tours on both sides of the Atlantic.
By any measure, they have come a long way since they had to secretly meet in caves to avoid being discovered by agents of the regime.
“We didn’t imagine ourselves anywhere,” says Arash Sobhani, founder of the group.
“We didn’t have any plan to put out an album, in the beginning it was just about getting together with friends. We didn’t want to leave the country at that time; and I knew we’d never be allowed to make the album we wanted. We just recorded things for fun, that’s all, we didn’t expect all this. Back then we had no plan to get our material out, and personally I didn’t want to release an album,” adds Sobhani.
Although the group’s members have been living in New York and Toronto for nearly ten years, their music is still rooted in the political, cultural and social issues affecting people’s daily life in Iran.
Composer and pianist, Ardalan Payvar said: “I can’t say that we were more or less influenced by Iranian society compared to our previous albums. ‘Adama mamoli’ is inspired by Iranian society so you could also say that rock has returned on our latest album, in my mind, we’ve always been inspired by Iran.”
Kiosk is a rare example of an Iranian underground group that’s succeeded by leaving the country to produce their music. But they don’t consider themselves mainstream in any way.
Despite being geographically far from their main audience, the group says the world is now a small place thanks to the internet, which gives them hope of staying around longer in the public eye.
“When we started our work there was a revolution in the world of communication that gave us the possibility of being heard. Fifteen, twenty years ago there was no iTunes, no internet. Now the net is available for independent groups. When we started, there was the possibility to go far with our music; plenty of groups before us did. They were musically very sound but today no-one’s heard of them,” says Sobhani.
1.49 Kiosk c’est un des rares groups “underground” qui a pu réussir leurs pari en quittant le pays et produire de la musique. le succès de kiosk, en tant qu’un des premiers groupe underground en Iran, encourage beaucoup des jeunes chanteurs et chanteuses iraniens d’aujourd’hui. les membres de kiosk sont bien placé pour parler et expliquer les problèmes et les obstacles qu’un groupe de rock iranien doit se confronter…
l’internet est un outil qui vient à l’aide des groupes de musiques qui ont une facon illegale, selon la loi de la république islamique, produire leurs musiques. grâce à Internet les groupes peuvent se faire connaître dans le monde entière, sans passer par l’autorisation du gouvernement. Arash Sobhani connaît les difficultés des musiciens qui ont du se taire pendant les 15 premiers années après la révolution de 1979,
Kiosk a fait un tour dans les villes européennes comme londrès, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich,...ils seront à new york le 28 septembre…