01	Oriental Dreamer						05:26
	02	Black Water						02:32
	03	Palika Bazaar						03:44
	04	Prasad						05:16
	05	Ganesha						04:49
	06	The Man From Behind						05:24
	07	Nidung						04:46
	08	Hunt Of Rabas						04:14
	09	The Magic Well						04:31
	10	Bay Of Bengal						07:10
	11	By The Frozen River						03:38
	12	Agarbathi						05:43
	13	Market Will Open						07:37

Year: 1999 Label: Tap/Record Heaven (Sweden) Catalog: TAP/RHCD-17 UPC: 7320470019894 Producer: Hakan Almkvist Note: All music composed, arranged, recorded, and mixed by Hakan Almkvist at Studio Nanna 1996-1999


Orient Squeezers Biography:
This is basically a solo project with composer and multi-instrumentalist Hakan Almkvist from Ensemble Nimbus. Here making a hybrid of psychedelic rock and oriental music, using traditional Indian instruments such as Sitar, Tabla, Tanpura, Santoor, along with electric guitars, bass, keyboards, samplers, percussion.

The whole idea to mix his knowledge about Indian classical music and their instruments together with more rock established instruments and western music came into his mind after being asked to make a live performance on a cultural event about different Asian cultures in 1996. The arranger where expecting a quite young audience not familiar to and not patient enough for listening to pure Indian classical Raga music, so there was in need of something more familiar elements in the music to pick up the attention. After making a few gigs with members of Ensemble Nimbus and some other musicians as the group Orient Squeezers, there was no permanent group playing the material after a while. Nevertheless he continued to compose and started more seriously to record tunes in the same style every now and than. By the end of 1998 there was enough material for a full length CD. In springtime of 1999 the CD titled "SADHU" TAP/RHCD 17 was released. All the great response and so many good reviews were encouraging to continue making this kind of music.

The tunes to the follow up CD titled "NAGAS" TAP/RHCD30 released in September 2000, was composed and recorded between July-99 and may-00. This time the inspiration did not come only from Indian music and scales but also by music from Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia (inspired by a trip to Bali where he was collecting environmental field recordings).



Recordings

Orient Squeezers "NAGAS"
2000 TAP/RHCD 30
Including: 11 tracks, time: 47.07 min

Hakan Almkvist

RECORD HEAVEN
PO Box 25
238 42 Tygelsjo, SWEDEN
Fax: +46-40-46 66 47
www.recordheaven.net

REVIEWS

Orient Squeezers "SADHU"
1999 TAP/RHCD 17
Including: 13 tracks, time: 64.56 min

Hakan Almkvist

RECORD HEAVEN
PO Box 25
238 42 Tygelsjo, SWEDEN
Fax: +46-40-46 66 47
www.recordheaven.net

REVIEWS


BACK to releases






ORIENT SQUEEZERS
Sadhu
RECORD HEAVEN 1999

Hakan Almkvist is a Swedish multi-instrumentalist that is involved currently in three projects of a different musical orientation, such as the ethnic-oriental progressive band In The Labyrinth, the avant-garde RIO innovative band Ensemble Nimbus, and the musical adventure we review now, Orient Squeezers. I should mention that behind the name of the group, we find the solitary work of this musician, which is based on playing progressive rock with a strong Oriental element, and we could even argue that the music in this album is closer to the second than to the first. It is possible that Sadhu may not be an interesting album for some progressive fans, as it moves away from the established patterns of the genre. On the contrary, its interest for me resides mainly on its wide-open ideas, in the search for new roads inside progressive, and only for this reason I value this work very positively. If to this we add that the compositions are excellent that wealth and variety of the music is enormous, and that the production is of high quality, we stand before a great and a very interesting work.
The instrumentation in this album is very varied and comes in good part from Africa and Asia: sitar, tabla, tanpura, zither, electric guitar, keyboards, electric bass, percussion, voices, samplers, tapes, loops and Fx. All instruments are played by Almkvist, which gives an idea of his greatness and the sound mixtures that a single person is sometimes able to carry out. Orient Squeezers' music gives a lot of different feelings to the listener, is very hipnotic and can introduce you in an exquisite world full of pleasures.

The 13 songs included in the album present a great diversity of atmospheres. We can listen to songs of a clear oriental style, as "Oriental dreamer", "The man from behind", "Nidung" or "Bay of Bengal"; Arab and Moorish pieces as "Black water", "Palika bazaar" or "Hunt of rabas"; and even oriental-progressive-ambient pieces as "Ganesha", "Prasad" or "By the frozen river". All of them share a brilliant work of the percussion, wonderful melodies and a new way of understanding progressive rock as a synthesis, mainly for the expansion of ideas proposed in this album.

In conclusion, Sadhu is a great work that paves new roads in progressive. Surely, these will only be crossed in the beginning by the most open-minded prog-heads, but it would be nice to see in the end all of us walking on this path, enjoying the colours around it. Progressive rock continues advancing, already three decades after it appeared in this world.

Jaume Pujol - March 2000