In The House Of Mirrors

Hector Zazou invites four outstanding instrumentalists from India and Uzbekistan to step into a virtual hall of mirrors, in which sound is reflected from one note to another: an aural equivalent of a famous scene in Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai.

Twenty-five years after laying the foundations for Afro-electronic fusion (with Congolese singer Bony Bikaye on the “Noir & Blanc” LP), and after many other groundbreaking albums, the ever-innovative Hector Zazou offers a fresh take on classical Asian music, in which the musicians' inspired performances are enhanced by his subtle reprocessing of the original sonic elements (no supplementary electronic sounds having been used).

The album was recorded in Mumbai with a core group of four musicians: Toir Kuziyev (tambur & oud), Milind Raykar (violin), Ronu Majumdar (flute) and Manish Pingle (Indian slide guitar).

Guest players on the album include Spanish flute player Carlos Nuñez, Nils Petter Molvaer on trumpet, flamenco pianist Diego Amador, Hungarian violinist Zoltan Lantos and percussionist Bill Rieflin (currently with R.E.M.).

Notes and resonances create waves which drive the instrumentalist to dive from the surface into the very heart of the sound, explains Zazou. The use of sound processing and reflections thus interacts with the way the musicians play, and reinforces the spiritual aspect of the music, just as church acoustics do with Gregorian chant.

Through its use of these reflection systems, "In The House Of Mirrors" might also be viewed as a discreet homage to the music produced in the '70s by the likes of Terry Riley and Fripp & Eno, translated for the first time into a classical Asian environment.