Shadow patterns flicker through a decorative screen window. A door opens deep inside a deserted ancient palace. A shimmering blue veil conceals kohl-rimmed eyes that watch—and widen. Intrigue. Mystery. The past and present overlap.

Roya.

The third album from award-winning Israeli-Persian singer Liraz is an invitation to dream. Anthems, love ballads, glittering Middle Eastern dance tunes—Roya (“fantasy” in Farsi) is a collection of 11 tracks that enrich her signature blend of tradi-modern rhythms and retro-Persian sonics. It is music as a magic portal, an arched gateway to a place of peace, joy, and unfettered, chador-waving freedom.

"My fantasy, I wished for peace in the world," she sings in Farsi, her golden voice shimmering on the hallucinogenic title track. "I will not lose my hope / You’ll see, our hearts will cross."

Liraz and her Israeli sextet—three women, three men—recorded Roya over ten days in Istanbul, in a hidden basement studio crackling with creativity. Joining them on violin, viola, and the tar—the wasp-waisted wooden Iranian lute—were composers and musicians from Tehran. The same anonymous players who had previously collaborated with Liraz online for her acclaimed 2020 album Zan, their identities concealed, their music shared under the radar of Tehran’s secret police. This time, they had traveled undercover to record in person.

Or at least, that’s what Liraz imagined.

"There is a passage connecting our tongue and heart, sustaining the secrets of the world and soul," wrote Rumi, the greatest Sufi mystic and poet of the Persian language, whose words Liraz treasures. "As long as our tongue is locked, the channel is open. The moment our tongue unlocks, the passage will close."

"Was it just in my mind? Was I really in the same room as these Iranian soul sisters and brothers?" Liraz pauses, waving an elegant hand. "All I remember are fragments: the fear and anxiety I felt knowing they were on their way. The tears of joy and relief as we embraced. And the music we made! Such music!" She flashes a smile. "It just poured out of us."

With strings snaking through pulsing electronics and wah-wah guitars, "Azizam" is a psychedelic wonder, strobing around lyrics of unhinged obsession ("You are the evil killing me / I, who is in love with you"). Featuring music by bassist Amir Sadot, "Doone Doone" is a rollicking ode to the Tehrani musicians Liraz befriended through computer screens—who might have been right there, within touching distance, recording alongside her. "Mimiram" delivers dramatic declarations of love with knowing irreverence, while "Omid"—a song that plays on the Farsi word for “hope” and a man’s name—was crafted with lyrics by an anonymous Iranian female musician and music by Ilan Smilan (co-writer of Zanco).

A slow, lonely lament for Iran, the string-and-synth-driven "Tanha" was recorded on the day the Iranian musicians may or may not have arrived in Istanbul. "I am singing about the boundaries that have melted between us," says Liraz, who wrote the lyrics and co-composed the music with Smilan and Brauner Kinrot. "I cried a lot between takes."

Her Hebrew accent remains intact ("This is my story, my culture clash"), her confidence bolstered by prestigious awards—Songlines Artist of the Year 2021—and widespread international acclaim. Liraz has never sounded so passionate, so strong, so defiant. Roya is the next phase in a high-profile career marked by a drive to fight oppression and champion the right of women everywhere to sing, perform, and be heard.

"Israel and Iran are not living in peace. Israelis cannot visit Iran, and Iranians cannot visit Israel. If Iranians contact Israelis, they risk imprisonment," says Liraz, whose Sephardic Jewish parents left Iran for Israel when the two countries had close ties. Even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, being Jewish in Iran was something to be kept quiet.

Her grandmother had once dreamed of being a singer—a profession forbidden to women in Iran. "Even at 85, she is a great singer; the other day, I put on a record by an Iranian artist, and she got up and sang loudly. My family has to sing," says Liraz, who grew up dancing to the music of divas like Ramesh and Googoosh, icons of Iran’s golden age of pop in the ’60s and ’70s. She also loved female singer-songwriters: Kate Bush, Tori Amos.

After lessons in singing, music, and acting—plus a stint spent clubbing—she worked for three years as an actress in the U.S., appearing in major films like Fair Game and A Late Quartet. In Tehrangeles—Los Angeles' "Little Tehran"—she found her people and embraced her inner Persian. "Iran has always seemed like a lover I’ve been longing for. I can sense what it is to be Iranian, but I’m not in that bubble inside Iran."

"This paradox made me a dreamer," continues Liraz, who—in a neat art-imitating-life twist—played a Farsi-speaking Mossad operative in Apple TV’s 2020 espionage series Tehran. "What if I had been born in Iran and couldn’t sing? Would I have tried to escape? There are always so many stories and visions inside my head. But I know I need to sing—I must sing—for the muted women of Iran. And I want to sing to Iran, about my love for Iran."

Her 2018 debut album, Naz, a collection of pre-revolutionary pop songs by her favorite female Iranian singers, lit up Iranian social media. Women sent her videos of themselves dancing inside their homes, casting off their chadors, headscarves, and veils, their faces radiant with joy. Iranian musicians began sending her encrypted clips, lyrics, and melodies, shaping the songs for Zan and forging relationships that defied borders.

With each album, Liraz has grown bolder, more outspoken (ask her about Palestine, and she’ll extol Palestinian rights, too). If recording in an underground studio with Tehran’s musicians was a fantasy, it was one she could almost reach out and touch.

The electrifying "Bishtar Behand" captures the healing power of laughter and togetherness. "Gandomi", written anonymously, praises cross-cultural romance and commitment. "Joonyani" is a tale of crazy love, of kissing pictures each night. The cinematic "Bi Hava", string-laden and serene, closes the circle of friendship between Liraz, her band, and the Tehrani musicians.

"I sing that it is not one day we will meet. We are already here with each other, in the now. So let us enjoy being together."

On the closing track, a female-led version of the opener "Roya", they do just that. "I felt such power from these ladies who had arrived from Iran," says Liraz. "We became like sisters. On the last day, with just an hour before everyone had to leave, I asked the Iranian women and the three women in my band to record a very raw, organic fusion of 'Roya.'"

"We got it in one amazing take. We all cried as we hugged and said goodbye. And then, just like that, everyone was gone." Her dark eyes flash. "Like they had never been there at all."

Somewhere in the past, fluttering toward the future, a blue veil flies free in the wind.

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