Record Reviews

MAYA BELSITZMAN / URIEL HERMAN ~ PAUSES IN SHADES UBUNTU MUSIC 5060451221046 (Barcode: 5060451221046) ~ ISRAEL ~ Pop-Classical Fusion Recorded: 2023 Released: 2024 This is a debut duo album by Israeli cellist Maya BelsitzmanFind albums by this artist and pianist Uriel HermanFind albums by this artist. The album presents ten tracks, all of which are original compositions by the duo. The album offers excellent sound quality and the playing time is slightly over half an hour, which makes it an EP rather than a full-fledged album. The music is strongly melody based, with notable Classical affiliations, but also offers some delicate ambient and World music hints. The prevailing atmosphere is deeply lyrical and at times almost romantic. Some subtle vocal effects and other studio trickery is also employed, but it does not change the mostly purely acoustic ambience of the music. The album has a strong Jazzy undercurrent and obviously involves improvisation, but it can be hardly considered a mainstream Jazz outing, but rather a sophisticated cross-genre offering, which should appeal to listeners who are not bound to a specific genre conventions and like unexpected changes of mood and out of the box creativity. Since this is the duo’s first project, I hope to hear more from them in the future, as they surely show great potential herein. Overall, this is an excellent debut effort, which offers some remarkable and highly potent music and elegant performances, which are definitely worth exploring.

Updated: 03/10/2024Posted: 03/10/2024

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