Singer-songwriter Haale, born in New York City to Iranian parents, grew up listening to Jimi Hendrix in one ear and Persian music in the other. Her distinctive style and incendiary live shows draw on a unique blend of '60s psychedelic rock and traditional Sufi music.

She sings in English and Persian; her band features electric guitars, strings and percussion.

Haale (pronounced "HA-lei") and her band will perform tonight at 7:30 in Memorial Hall at UNC

The concert is part of Carolina Performing Arts' Urban Voices series, set to conclude on April 12 with New York-based electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars.

"Haale is the kind of musician we have the Urban Voices series for," said Emil Kang, executive director for the arts at UNC. "She's such an eclectic and vibrant artist."

Haale sings her own lyrics in English and those of mystical Sufi poets such as Rumi in Persian.

"In Sufi tradition, music is a tool for ushering listeners into a transcendent state, for turning them on, awakening their souls, propelling them into ecstasy," she said. "I think great psychedelic rock does this as well."

A New York Times reviewer wrote of her performance in February 2007 in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall: "Three percussionists provided driving rhythms on hand drums, shakers and clacking karkaba (metal castanets), over which Haale's warm, supple voice unfurled like a curlicue of smoke. Her band's amplified rumble served as a reminder of the extent to which rock bands like the Doors and the Velvet Underground turned to the East for their most hypnotic efforts; here their borrowings were reclaimed with interest."

Tickets for Haale's UNC concert are $20 and are available by phone at 843-3333, online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org or at the Memorial Hall box office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.

Tickets for Carolina students are $10. Tickets for all other remaining performances in the 2007-08 Carolina Performing Arts season also are on sale.