ASTROPHE ASCENDS – Parissa

MUSIC

Feb 16

Marking the announcement of her debut solo album I Have This Memory Of You, due March 26, 2026, Iranian-Australian artist Parissa offers ‘River (گلریز)’ – a layered excavation of identity, inheritance and the quiet spaces between memory and imagination. The song moves through questions that sit at the heart of her record: who and what has made me who I am? What does it mean to belong to a place you may never physically return to, yet carry in your face, your name, your voice?

Raised within the stories of a family shaped by migration – parents who left Iran before the 1978 revolution, relatives who fled after – Parissa’s work holds the emotional complexity of displacement and resilience. The strength of the women in her lineage, the poetry of Rumi, Hafez and Tahirih, and the idea of “thin places” – those permeable realms between the earthly and the divine – all thread themselves through her songwriting. For Parissa, music becomes its own crossing point: a Barzakh, a Tirtha, a space where memory and spirit meet.

In this conversation, she reflects on lineage, parks as sanctuary, poetry as inheritance, and the ways art allows us to reach toward places that feel both distant and deeply within us.

Outside of your art form, where do you draw inspiration from?

My family, particularly the women of my lineage. I am of Iranian descent with parents that left before the 1978 revolution and most of my family fleeing after due to their faith. The strength of the women that held and raised children in a new place as well as found their feet as migrants always makes it’s way into the stories of my songs – I want to carry their strength forward somehow. I read a lot of poetry – the great Persian poets, Khayyam, Rumi and Hafez as well as the incredible Tahirih. I love Rilke, Liz Berry, Nikita Gill, Ruzā Jamālī and Shirin Ebadi. These make their way into my subconscious and into the music I write.

What’s your favourite “third space”?

Parks! I love discovering local parks wherever I am. I have always lived in cities and these small but precious natural environments give me a true insight into family life and how people interact in any given place. My local parks are my haven and I have spent hours there.

What’s something you return to again and again — a book, a place, a habit, a memory?

There’s a Celtic concept I think about a lot that appears in many cultures. It’s essentially a place that feels heavenly and otherworldly and therefore permeable to the mysterious, divine or supernatural. In Iranian tradition it’s called Barzakh, an intermediate realm, in Japanese Shinto tradition Kami, Hindu Tirtha, a crossing point and in Sufism Baraka. I believe music and art can take us to this thin place. Many times I’ll experience an otherworldliness while writing music or hearing a song that is powerful. I feel like I’m connecting with dreams, memories and people of another place.

How has your understanding of success changed over time?

Success to me has grown to mean choosing how to spend my time. As a mother, I find the precious and fleeting moments of life have to be spent wisely or they’ll disappear before I know it. I don’t mean having to be productive all the time, but really delighting in things that I am privileged to experience, being grateful and honouring those around me and where they are.

How instrumental is collaboration for you ?

Everything I make is as a result of collaboration. I used to be really insecure about my musical abilities until I met the right collaborators who made me feel like what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it had a place. There’s a lot of friends that worked on my album visuals and music directly or behind the scenes. Each person gave me a fresh understanding of the concepts I was putting into my music and my creation.

What is the one thing you hope people take away from your music ?

My album is a personal journey to connect with my Iranian heritage. I have never been to Iran but it is the home of my ancestry and the people that make me who I am. I wanted to tell the stories of my family and friends and of the Iranian diaspora like me, who feel connected to a home they’ve never been to. So I guess I want those who are in my situation to feel seen and I want others to see the humanity of a group of people, refugees and migrants from Iran, who are usually othered. I want them to hear about their journeys, their love, their compassion and their strength. Finally, I want people to draw parallels between their lives and Iranians, we are all the same in many ways, we want love and family and hope. Just because we’re born into different realities doesn’t mean we don’t value the same things.

What are 7 things you find heavenly?