Stellamara - The Seven Valleys

I ordered this CD through Amazon after hearing a preview on their website www.stellamara.com. Wow, I was really impressed with the tasteful level of production and musicianship! I like their first disc, Star of the Sea, but some of the tracks had a rather "new age" feel to them that I would easily tire of.

The Seven Valleys brings the traditional instruments to the forefront and uses electronic programming tastefully to add depth and ambiance. There is a lot of oud, saz, and even some cumbus throughout the album. My favorite track so far is #9 - Maliks, which features an oud & sarod duet. Awesome!

You can listen to their first album for free at http://www.magnatune.com/artists/stellamara. Check 'em out!

Hi Daniel. I'm afraid it takes a lot for these fusion jobs to impress me - as you said, it can get a bit too new age. But if you liked that you should check out Niyaz's eponymous album and the new "Nine Heavens" (if you haven't already). Lots of Saz and kemencheh but no oud. Mostly farsi and urdu poetry (Rumi etc) set to very urban production values (they're based in LA). It's very produced, but very well-produced (by Carmen Rizzo). The vocals of Nizam Ali are sublime, to use a cliche, and Loga Ramin Torkian is an excellent instrumentalist on, well, everything (except oud ).

Seven valleys, nine heavens. Ah yes, we must be in the new age.

Hi Dave. Yeah, Stellamara and Niyaz are the only 2 fusion groups I've discovered that have ever done anything for me. I actually got to see Niyaz in concert a year or 2 ago. They had an oud player on tour with them and he gave an amazing performance. Their first album would have been much better had they included him! I haven't purchased Nine Heavens yet, but was under the impression that there would be oud on the tracks. You say there is none??

I picked up a CD by a band called Lumin (based in LA as well) and there were 2 or 3 really good tracks, but then the rest of the album was pure garbage! It seems like this stuff is hit or miss... Let's hope fusion music soon reaches it's "new age"! Cheers!