Journal
Evening Rise — A New EP Begins
Four tracks. Four worlds. An EP born in lockdown India, finished in an Israeli studio — and releasing in chapters.
Some records take years to finish because you keep chasing something you can't quite name. Evening Rise is that kind of record.
Four tracks. Each one a world unto itself. And yet, when you play them back to back, something clicks — a single arc that starts in ancient raga and ends somewhere altogether new.
Where It Started
Two of the tracks on this EP were conceived during the lockdown years, when I was stranded in India with a sitar and no flights home. The world had stopped, so I built — collaborating with whoever was nearby: an Indian vocalist, an Auroville drummer, a West African ngoni player passing through. The sessions were improvised, urgent, and honest in the way that only real isolation makes possible.
The other two tracks came later, back in Israel, carrying what I had learned but reshaping it through a different set of ears. The Israeli sessions added layers — bouzouki, lyra, violin, Hebrew vocals — that pulled the music closer to home without abandoning the journey.
The Four Tracks
Evening Rise — the title track — is where Indian raga meets something older and slower: a twilight mood, a melody that doesn't resolve the way you expect it to. Co-composed with Ronny Lahiri — we each wrote different sections, then stitched them into one arc. It features Boaz Galili on lyra, Nadav Fast on violin, and Ronny and Yuli Shafriri on vocals.
Love in the Days of Corona — an instrumental, born exactly when the name says. No words needed. Just the sitar and what the pandemic taught us about silence and sound.
Ka Karoon Sajni — a traditional Indian raga song, sung in Hindi by Aakash Singh. I've played this raga for years; this version finally captures why.
Djeliya Laage Re Nain — the first single. A track that fuses Manding griot tradition with Indian classical melody. Saki on vocals and ngoni, Aakash Singh on vocals, and Alexandre Wielemans on ngoni and djembe. This is what Afro-Raga sounds like when it's fully realized.
Releasing in Chapters
Djeliya Laage Re Nain is releasing first. The remaining three tracks will follow across 2026, one by one, each with its own moment.
This isn't a conventional album rollout. It's a release in chapters — because each track has its own story to tell, and some stories need space.
Follow the EP to catch each chapter as it arrives.
Evening Rise was recorded across Auroville and Tel Aviv. Mixed and produced by Yoav Or. Mastered by Ronen Roth at Sonic Yard.