Ghazal - As Night Falls on the Silk Road (1998)

This gorgeous improvisational collaboration between Persian kamacheh player Kayhan Kalhor and North Indian sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan was rightly hailed as the finest world music release of 1998. AS NIGHT FALLS ON THE SILK ROAD is shot through with aching melodicism, virtuosic musicianship, and a fierce, carefully focused passion rarely heard from any corner of the globe. Kalhor's kamancheh (a four-stringed, upright Iranian ancestor of most European and Asian bowed instruments) merges seamlessly with Khan's sitar and understated vocals to create rich, protean, highly evocative soundscapes at once spacious and infinitely dense.

Swapan Chaudhuri, one of the greatest living masters of the tabla, supports Kalhor and Khan. Chaudhuri propels the duo's playing with his sensitive, bogglingly complex hand-drum accompaniment. By turns peaceful, tender, and feverishly energetic, the musical conversations that evolve here take the already profoundly spiritual tradition of Indian music to new heights of invention and greater depths of meditative meaning. This beautiful recording is an essential addition to any world music collection. (Source: cduniverse.com)
The Music:
01 - My Eyes, My Heart 15:10
02 - Between Dawn and Dawn a New Truth 21:21
03 - Snowy Mountains 08:55
04 - Traces of the Beloved 27:06

Total time: 72:32

The Players:
* Kayhan Kalhor - kamancheh
* Shujaat Husain Khan - sitar, vocals
* Swapan Chaudhuri - tabla (track 1)
* Rafiuddin Sabri - tabla (all tracks except 1)
* Ravi Kuma - dholak (tracks 2 and 3)
* S. P. Bahlla - percussion (tracks 2 and 3)

Enjoy!