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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with JOSH LOEB
Published: 7 August 2008

Tehran, Swansea? Under the influence of Roshi Nasehi

REVIEW: ROSHI NASEHI
The Old Queen's Head

WATCH the news and you might be forgiven for thinking that Iran is all bearded zealots and centrifuges.
Thankfully, Roshi Nasehi is around to prove that there is also great music coming out of the country.
It seems unfair to pigeonhole Nasehi as Iranian.
Her influences are wide, her music as much a product of her youth in Wales as of her eastern heritage. She sings variously about being a frustrated teenager in Swansea and swimming by moonlight in Rasht.
At Monday’s gig she opened with Mastom (meaning “I am drunk”), a euphoric song that gave full reign to her vocal talents, rounding off with a poppy number she translated as “Oh Uncle, Uncle, I’m Looking for a Hyacinth.”
“But,” she added, “a friend of ours misunderstood and thought it was ‘Oh Uncle, Uncle, I’m Looking for a Higher Synth’.”
Nasehi’s voice can hold its own, but she is often accompanied by her band, which includes Graham Dowdall, AKA Gagarin, an electronicist who has worked with the likes of Pere Ubu.
Dowdall’s fingers flitted about on a musical dashboard that emitted otherworldly chirps and sighs with characteristic speed – the kind of quirk that makes her music really innovative.
Roshi is unpretentious, compulsive and potentially popular in appeal. Today, some small pub in Islington; tomorrow, perhaps a staple of the Radio 1 playlist.

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