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Vas vocalist Azam Ali, Axiom of Choice's multi-instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian, and producer/remixer Carmen Rizzo have joined forces to create a globe-spanning sound that the trio calls "folk music for the 21st century." Known collectively as Niyaz, the trio's first eponymous release is a hypnotic, ecstatic, and eminently danceable album that represents the best of both traditional world music and electronic music. All three of these musicians have built impressive individual careers.

With an ethereal, beguiling sound that evokes centuries of women's voices from medieval Europe to the modern Middle East, Azam Ali is best known as half of the best-selling duo Vas (with percussionist Greg Ellis). Her singing has been heard in several major motion pictures including The Matrix: Revolutions and on many television programs such as Alias and The Agency. Of Azam's 2002 solo album, a Billboard reviewer raved, "It's unlikely that this year will bring a more spellbinding vocal album than Portals of Grace… Throughout, Ali's voice is a glorious, unforgettable instrument."

Loga Ramin Torkian, whose band Axiom of Choice has won much critical acclaim, is deeply involved with the music of his homeland, Iran. He is accomplished on the guitar, the Turkish saz and electric guitarviol (a 14th century European bowed guitar), a traditional Persian lute, as well as other Turkish and Kurdish instruments. Loga also uses the Persian classical repertoire, known as the radif, within his own compositions. A two-time Grammy Award nominee, Carmen Rizzo has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, including Seal, Alanis Morisette, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Khaled, Ekova, and Cirque du Soleil as well as Paul Oakenfold, BT, Esthero, Jem, Alpha, Tiesto and Grant Lee Phillips.

For these three artists, Niyaz represents a real departure from their usual avenues of artistic expression. Their first joint album weaves together ten beautiful, mystical poems written by some of the greatest Sufi poets of all time, with music accessible to a contemporary audience. Azam, who was born in Iran but largely raised in India, sings in both Farsi (the Persian language) as well as in Urdu, a language widely spoken in India and in Pakistan. The music, too, represents cultural blendings of the highest order, crossing back and forth over centuries of musical expression to combine ancient instruments, rhythms, and tonalities with brand new sounds. Mingling the textures of traditional acoustic music with new electronica, Niyaz represents a finely-tuned balance that ushers in a new era of artistic possibilities for Iranian music.

The Farsi poetry Niyaz sets to music on this disc is by the revered 13th-century poet Jalaluddin Rumi; the Urdu poetry (translated by Azam herself for the album's liner notes) comes from similarly towering poetic mystics from the Indian subcontinent.

"This kind of poetry is very often used in traditional classical music," observes Azam. "But people who aren't keyed into that tradition don't know the poetry. So I wanted to utilize it in a much more modern setting."

"The word 'Niyaz' means need or yearning in both Farsi and Urdu," Azam explains. She and Loga see this yearning operating on multiple levels of personal experience. "The mystical aspect of all religions is something very attractive to me," continues Azam, "and I feel like it's being lost in many traditions, including Christianity and Islam." Seemingly paradoxical considering Los Angeles' hyper-glossiness, Azam finds that living in L.A. has actually made her more of a spiritual seeker. "Everyone I know living here explores many different religions," she observes. "We live in a free society, so we can explore. And living in L.A. has made me much more reflective. In a city like this, there's nothing in the urban environment to stimulate you spiritually, so you become very introspective. That comes out in an artist's work."

For Niyaz, however, the idea of community and homeland are also wrapped in a profound sense of longing, especially for the group's two Iranian expatriates. Loga arrived in the United States at age 14, first living in Eugene, Oregon before moving to Los Angeles. "Like many younger Iranian-Americans," he observes, "I actually learned more about my culture once I left the country."