Gunesh
Rishad Shafi Presents Gunesh

As it happens with almost all the most unusual progressive rock albums coming from the most remote and unimaginable places, this oriental souvenir (title of a track on the album, by the way) from the distant Turkmenistan was discovered by yours truly while navigating the boundless purple oceans of ProgArchives... anyway yes, you read that right: Turkmenistan. Remember Borat? More or less from those parts, actually, right under the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. Anyway, you can imagine the astonishment of the writer upon discovering that even in such a remote and forgotten place (at least by the Western world), there exists progressive rock. And that Rishad Shafi (who passed away just over a year ago), if not for the Soviet authorities (let's remember Turkmenistan was an integral part of the former USSR), could have played with the much more famous Peter Gabriel, his great admirer, and earned the fame that such a wizard of percussion of all kinds deserves (do a little research on YouTube if you are not willing to believe me).

Gunesh is indeed the creature of the Turkmen drummer Rishad Shafi, born as a vocal group with supporting musicians from the state radio and television, to which younger musicians were later added, gradually making the sound more modern. The group participated in several Soviet music festivals and became popular, eventually releasing 2 albums (a self-titled album in 1980 and "???? ?????" - Looking at the Earth - in 1984), which served as a passport to numerous concerts in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa.

The formation presents itself as a small orchestra, the instrumentation of which includes (besides obviously drums and percussion) typical Asian instruments like the sitar and dutar (a two-stringed lute typical of all Central Asia), alongside electric instruments like electric guitars, fretless bass, electric piano, and synthesizers, "Western" acoustic instruments like trumpet, trombone, sax, violin, plus various singers. Needless to say, the amalgam of sounds that emerges from this phenomenal orchestra-caravan is as heterogeneous and surprising as ever: traditional music not only from the deserts and steppes of Turkmenistan but also Azerbaijani mugam, Caucasian music, "muezzin-like" chants, in arrangements typical of progressive jazz-rock: here and there memories of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Osibisa, and even our own Area emerge, but the result is absolutely unique and has its very distinct personality. All played with the utmost professionalism possible and a lot, a whole lot of passion, without any kind of virtuosity for its own sake, and held together by the percussion of master Shafi, eclectic, magmatic, hyperkinetic, always engaging and interesting, and especially never banal or intrusive. The album also has the merit of not falling into the typical trap of the genre: being a cold exercise of style. The tension does not drop for a second during the hour-long album, and the tracks are by turns tense, vibrant, relaxed, sunny, melancholy, mysterious, majestic...

Two last clarifications for those who might be afraid of what they are about to encounter: most likely, even those with an ear not well-trained to foreign languages other than English will find Turkmen (often described as an archaic form of Turkish) to be an extremely pleasant and musical language, obviously with an extremely exotic sound. Even if, like me, you don't understand a word of Turkmen. As for the recording, it is certainly not the best available at the time, but considering the country of origin of the musicians, it is surprisingly good.

An album to which I have absolutely no fear of giving a full rating, and I strongly recommend it to all jazz and fusion enthusiasts with a strong ethnic flavor.