| Lost Songs of the Silk Road | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Ghazal |
| Cover: | Lost Songs of the Silk Road.jpg |
| Released: | 1997 |
| Label: | Shanachie[1] |
| Producer: | Brian Cullman |
| Next Title: | As Night Falls on the Silk Road |
| Next Year: | 1998 |
Lost Songs of the Silk Road is the debut album by Ghazal, a trio made up of Iranian and Indian musicians.[2] [3] Swapan Chaudhuri played the tabla, Kayhan Kalhor played the kamancheh, and Shujaat Khan played the sitar.[4] [5] The album was released in 1997.[6] [7]
The album was produced by Brian Cullman. It was recorded in New York City. The songs began with a basic melody played by Kalhor and Khan, before turning to improvisation.[8]
The New York Times stated: "Each piece is a long three-way improvisation based on simple melodies that the players push back and forth, and the reedy scrape of Kayhan Kalhor's bowed fiddle creeps out stealthily like a human voice, a rough and ancient sound against the metallic ringing of the sitar."[9] Billboard deemed the album a "soulful, pioneering hybrid."[10]
The Oregonian praised the "slow, dreamlike improvisations marked by elegant thematic development and marvelous subtlety and detail."[11] Ethnomusicology concluded that "the melodic expression on this CD hovers somewhere between dastgah and rag, but Shujaat's forceful improvisations tend to pull the whole closer to Indian styles and structures."[12]
AllMusic called the album "a fascinating meeting of Persian and Indian musical and cultural influences."