Ek Safar

“Relax and enjoy!” – that’s how Jasper van’t Hof concludes his liner notes on the trios’ CD “Ek Safar”. That’s true as true can be: listeners savor an hour of full sounds, which seem not to be from this world. A tabla weaves a carpet with its sonorous, rich sounds, on which piano and clarinet can fly.
All three musicians participate in developing melodies, which never become a goal in themselves, but instead take a place directly in our hearts. They are the emotional starting point for a journey through various styles and worlds of music. Of course, the Indian influences are the basis; there’s a reason why the music falls back on traditional ragas that gently lead into the modern. But you cannot avoid hearing that all participants have a wide-range of experience that goes far beyond restricted borders of style. And which enables them to detach almost unnoticeably from compositions and explore the sounds freely associated behind the notes.
The often forced term “world music” has a special significance for Ek Safar: it not only covers the shared exploration of new forms of musical expression, but also participation in a common project on absolutely equal terms.
Anti-authoritarianism as principle in music, which can certainly succeed: this is the proof.
The music of this CD serves too as the soundtrack of a film, which will be released and shown at international festivals in 2013: “Where is my tent?” by Zubin Sethna. It is a very personal, associative documentary in which the director searches for tent that he once donated after a severe earthquake in Pakistan. It should be very interesting to see (hear) what effect the music has in connection with pictures from Asia…