Gunesh (Turkmenistan, USSR)

At first the ensemble was a part of State TV and Radio Company of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic as a vocal group with supporting instruments. Later the composition of the group began to change as young people joined it. The group began to play jazz-rock tightly intertwined with the Oriental tradition. Gunesh' has always been in the process of reforming and was one of the first and best to organically combine the similar principles of the melodious improvisation on traditional mugams and jazz improvisation. The unexpectedly beautiful arrangements appeared,and polirhythmic compositions with odd measure were
further developed thematically.

For their second LP, Looking at the Earth, Gunesh stepped it up a notch on the creative scale. We still have 2 barn burner horn rockers but Gunesh also added some trippy Caucasus mountain music, Muslim prayer calls, psychedelia, hot fusion, Vietnamese traditional music, etc.. to make for one of the finest albums I've ever heard. Rishad Shafi is possibly the finest drummer to be found in the prog rock archives (Peter Gabriel considered him once but working it out with the Soviet authorities proved to be too much). 

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