Iranian Singer Googoosh

Ever since the revolution began in 1979, rights there have been curtailed. Musicians have experienced that since only certain forms of music are permitted and female musicians have an even harder time expressing themselves.

Women solo vocalists for example can only perform before all-female audiences.

Little surprise then that many female Iranian musicians have left Iran to work in freer atmospheres. One such performer is Fargheh Atashin, better known by her stage name Googoosh.

Born in Iran in 1950, she reached her stride of popularity in the late 1970s. That is also when the revolution in Iran took hold and a lot of her music was banned.

Googoosh left Iran in the early 80s after being jailed for several months for living with her boyfriend out of wedlock.

In recent years, she performs only sporadically and her latest project this year was launching a line of cosmetics that she has endorsed.

Her younger Iranian fans, who have just discovered her, may have come across little back-catalog material recorded by Googoosh. So those young fans will be happy to hear that the independent record label Finders Keepers has released a collection of rare Googoosh songs.

This new collection features songs recorded on 45 singles in Iran that have been long-forgotten and in these eclectic tracks, Googoosh take cues from disco, psychedelic rock and even bossa nova.