Aligned

Itzhak Ventura is a ney specialist, mastering the Persian, Arabic and Turkish variants of this end-blown reed flute. He also takes its inherently naked, natural sound, and surrounds it with drums, keyboards, and electric bass, creating an elaborately expanded framework. Although Aligned is the Israeli Ventura's debut album, he's spent many years researching and travelling, to Istanbul, and then visiting the Californian-Iranian communities, refining his knowledge of these differing approaches to playing the ney.

Most of the tracks on this album feature the Persian variant of the instrument. Ventura's quartet layer up thickened tones, making them sound like a larger ensemble, but his ney is always frontal in the spread. They adopt a thoughtful, modernised sound, even while the ney sounds are rooted in older traditions. Yonatan Daskal mostly plays acoustic piano, but also chooses an appealingly retro tinny organ on some pieces. The bass and drums have an aggressive thrust, often out-of-kilter with Ventura's meditative intentions. Even though over-active, the group composite often manages to conjure poignant atmospheres, with a kind of calm dynamism. Ventura's ney often cries out for surrounding space, when the accompaniment is too dense. The strengths of this debut lie in his own playing and compositions.