“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…

Nicolas Schulze studied jazz piano in Stuttgart and graduated with distinction. His playing is extremely brilliant, even if he does not produce thunderous cascades of sound, but instead generates light and sparkling lines. He already proved that with his Nikotrio, but his mode of playing goes down perfectly in a new guise at Ek Safar. In addition to his playing, he is also very successful as a composer for theater and film music.
Heiner Stilz plays the clarinet. He studied saxophone in Cracow and Stuttgart and graduated in 2005. He not only can play many instruments (he also plays keyboard instructions, flute and saxophone), but he also plays many styles. He already explored all music styles from classic to electronic music and all the way to soul and jazz during his studies, and consequently he has played in renowned philharmonic orchestras as well as in jazz big bands (LE Big Band).

Soumitra Paul was born in Kolkata, India. He already took lessons in tabla playing from Ustad Sabir Khan when he was 10. He also already went on concert tours through India when he was a teenager and then throughout the world after received his Master's degree from the university in his home town. He taught at a university in Paris and gave master classes in London. He lives and teaches in Berlin today.