The “Sagar” album by the electric-acoustic ambient project ZAINDIVELI combines in a well-balanced way a broad variety of styles, from jazz and progressive rock to ambient and psychedelic music. Still the true foundation of the album is classical Hindustani music dated back to the depths of ancient times, as well as dhrupad vocals you can hear in some of the compositions.
The project was started by two Moscow musicians Gennady Lavrentiev (Chalama with Radik Tulush, Seven Eight Band, Anna Hoffman & Romancero Sefardi, Marimba plus, Namgar, Authentic Light orquestra etc.) and Kirill Parenchuk (Anna Hoffman & Romancero Sefardi, Vladimir Chekasin, Subhshree Janardan, ASD & Alina Rostotskaya) back then in early noughties. For the musicians that was right the period of growing immensely fond of Hindustani music, which actually gave title to the project. ZAINDIVELI means “got enchanted with Indian music”. As the years passed, the project was joined by new "indified" participants, such as Oleg Mariakhin on saxophones, (Inna Zhelannaya band, Seven Eight Band, Tinavie, Safety Magic, etc.), Sergey "Grebstel" Kalachov on bass (Inna Zhelannaya band, Tinavie), Andrey Demidenko performing dhrupad vocals and bansuri (Auroria), Dmitry Losev on keys and electroacoustics (Tinavie and Safety Magic) and Vladislava Yakupova (Auroria), playing bila (Russian flat bells).
Although Indian music remains the general line of the project, each of the participants expands the boundaries of the musical space in all possible directions, thus making the album as illimitable as the global ocean, which accounts for the title (translated from Hindi, “sagar” means “sea” or “ocean”). According to the authors, the album should not be considered as just a meditative set, but rather as the kind of ambient appropriate to Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Bill Laswell and such like. The sound of the album is extraordinarily elaborate and accomplished, it is full of original live samples and fresh musical ideas.
credits:
Gennady Lavrentiev - composition, programming, guitar, tabla (1,4), violin (3,4,5), violin pizzicato (1)
Kirill Parenchuk - composition (1,4,6), programming (1,3), soprano saxophone (1), tabla tarang (1,5), tabla (3), drumkit (3), xaphoon (4,6)
Oleg Mariakhin - soprano saxophone (5), baritone saxophone (2,4,6), electroacoustics (4,6)
Sergey "Grebstel" Kalachev - bass (1,2,6), electroacoustics (1)
Andrei Demidenko - bansuri flute (1,3), dhrupad vocal (3,7)
Dmitry Losev - keyboards (5,6), electroacoustics (5,6,7)
Vladislava Yakupova - bila flat bells (1,7)
Ilya XMZ - composition (3)
records - 2010-2016 in home studio / mix - Gennady Lavrentiev, Arsen Stepanyan / mastering - Victor Bulatov / design - Anna Hoffman, Anna Klinshova-Alvarez / produced - Gennady Lavrentiev