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Record Heaven   Orient Squeezers : Sadhu (S,1999)***°

Radioshow description : A consistent to listen to album which reveals oriental themes, sitar and melodies combined with middle eastern percussion. Notice certain similarities in In The Labyrinth's latest releases. I especially like Hahan's electric guitar playing of oriental and middle eastern melodies. Therefore I especially picked out those tracks with guitar.

Audio : "The Magic Well" ; Other reviews : http://w1.185.telia.com/~u18512468/rec-sadhu-eng.htm

WORLD FUSION INFLUENCES :

ORIENT SQUEEZERS

CD (1999); CD (2000), CD (2001)

Record Heaven  Orient Squeezers : Nagas (S,2000)***°

On the first tracks of this second album there is experimented a bit more with oriental samples, rhythms and loops. This does not make it less good, but makes it more a (dance and chill-out associated) eastern acoustic/exotic 'jungle' music, as if played by a small ensemble. "Cosmic Dancer" has a more stuffed complexity. "Kulfi" has a Beatlesque sitar playing on an smoothly beat. One repeated loop as extra instrument gives the rather middle eastern "Garuda" an extra African touch. Beautiful sounds the use of the samples (voices, singing) with a gamelan like instrument at "Rambutan", a bit like Musci & Venosta's approach of world music sampling. It is an album which needed for me a bit more time before I could get a grip upon it. Nice.

Other review : http://home.swipnet.se/TON-ART/rec-nagas-eng.htm

Record Heaven  Orient Squeezers : Nubia (S,2001)***

The first time when I heard this third album comparing with the first one I believed this was basically more like an improvision on a middle eastern flavoured melodic complex mood. The layers with rhythms and melodies are built with more complex result. Again I liked the magnificent electric guitar work on some tracks, like on "Kadesh" and "Maheswar". I couldn't help imagening exotic duets with someone like Erkin Koray here. Rhythmically the album is more up tempo and also sounds more modern. "Kira,Kira" is like a soundtracks for a darker mystic jungle experience.  Also in "Hattusa" are used some samples which recall dark Africa. "Another Road" has more a world fusion efect : some (latin flavoured ) brass instruments appear within a (middle) eastern flavoured moment.  "Durbar" contains a sitar based melody, while "Procession" a Middle eastern flavoured one.

Audio : "Real Clovis" ; Webpage on Orient Squeezers : http://w1.185.telia.com/~u18512468/Orient.htm

& www.myspace.com/orientsqueezers

(from http://www.tap-records.com/) with other review of this item : http://w1.185.telia.com/~u18512468/rec-nubia-eng.htm & http://w1.185.telia.com/~u18512468/Orient.htm

Contact : h.almkvist@telia.com

A related group is Into The Labyrinth. See review on next world fusion page

Label : http://www.tap-records.com/