We fell in love with Parissa Tosif’s track River (گلریز) earlier this year for its gentleness and emotiveness so I was extremely excited for the release of her LP I have this memory of you this week.
I was immediately taken in by hypnotic opening track I Sing For You (پروانه), and you can really hear the melding of influences between modern pop music and the sounds of her Iranian ancestry. This sound forms the backbone of an album that often feels like a conversation between the eastern and western influences that inform her music. The song writing and structure are largely pop music based while the instrumental choices and rhythmic parts of the tracks lean more into traditional Iranian culture.
The result is something both incredibly unique and incredibly personal to Parissa. She gives so much of herself in the storytelling and in the building blocks of each track that this truly is an album and sound only she could create. It seeks to capture the lives of people who leave their motherland, whether they be migrants, refugees or like Parissa – someone who has never visited a country which is part of their heritage.
It beautifully captures this strange sense of longing – for something you no longer want or possibly never had and this idea of almost living in the space between two worlds. Do you belong to both or neither? It’s interesting how some tracks seem to switch between both perspectives and others lean more heavily to one side or another. Fury (نیلوفر آبی) for example is a very Lana Del Rey-esque pop song whereas Aftab (آفتاب) resounds with Eastern influences.
“Because of my mum’s decision to leave Iran, and the sacrifices she made,” Tosif explains, “I’m the first person in my family to have a public voice and to sing in public. I wanted to make something that was a gift to all the women in my lineage — because my mum is a turning point in that lineage.”
“I think heritage is emotional for everyone,” she reflects. “This album is me opening my heart — my discovery, my gratitude, my longing, my love for my family and my history — and hoping that people find something in it that makes them feel more connected to their own.”
I also love how rhythm is used so powerfully to change the energy of the songs within I have this memory of you. It’s a very soft album, even tracks such as Fury (نیلوفر آبی) , which you’d expect to be loud from its title, have a gentleness about them. I do wonder how much of this comes from Parissa’s feeling that she’s the first in her family to have a public voice. Is she gently testing out how to use this, or is the softness born of a great sense of responsibility of wanting to do this right? Either way, it’s an album of powerful depth, of both contradictions and harmony and it truly gives you a window into Parissa’s life.
You can listen to I have this memory of you here.
And follow along with Parissa here