Opium Moon

This multi-talented group, comprising violinist Lily Haydn, santur (zither) player Hamid Saeidi, bassist Itai Disraeli and percussionist MB Gordy, have produced a debut collaboration uniting seductive violin, delicate santur virtuosity and a teasing bass commentary with supportive percussion. Drawing the poem by Hafiz from which the group takes its name, the album ostensibly seeks to express life's innate inclusiveness, striving for mindfulness and a liberation from illusory and transient values.

Haydn's versatile violin and Saeidi's lithe santur reveal Western and Eastern cultural sound-worlds complementing each other. In ‘Drunk With the Great Starry Void’, Saeidi's transparent sound counteracts Haydn's dreaminess. In ‘How Can I Pray When the Beloved is All I See?’, the bass is initially disquieting against the sensual interplay of santur and violin, but it is capped later with Disraeli's own fleeting but dazzling display. Still, over the course of 60 minutes, you do start to miss a little of the excitement that comes from instrumentalists truly playing off each other and transforming each other's material. The unison passages, both in ‘Caravan’ and elsewhere, generate a somewhat predictable and cosmetic kind of pathos. I would look forward to this group's future endeavours if they embraced more worldly matter and strove for bolder musical development, brighter colours and rhythmic variety.