Tel-Aviv based composer, producer, bassist and bandleader Shay Hazan, who released a superb 7inch single last year with his Quintet on Jazzman Records, returns with a brilliant new album, titled Reclusive Rituals on London’s Batov Records.

Released late in 2021, this amazing new eight track recording nicely fuses together North African Gnawa grooves, with haunting jazz horns and cosmic hypnotic tones, backed by hip hop influenced beats and head-nodding drum rhythms. The album is spiritual, meditative, yet also very funky in it’s overall sound.

On this session Hazan plays bass, guitar, and another instrument he more recently learned to play, the three-stringed Guimbri, which is a camel-skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people of North Africa. The album was recorded during lockdown, which required Hazan to take a different approach to this recording than he has in the past, by first developing the foundational grooves of each track before sending those isolated recordings off to other musicians to add their own parts. Other contributors on the record include saxophonist Eyal Netzer on “Afrobeatz”, trumpeter Tal Avraham, additional programming and keyboards by Doron Segal on “Basquiat” and “Remove the Talk”, keys by Milton Michaeli on “Bob Dealer”, and Nir Tom Sabag provides drums and percussion on four of the tracks.

In all, this is an outstanding new album and an adventurous new chapter for Hazan, as he fully dives in and explores his love of jazz, hip hop, and Gnawan music, while creating a sound that’s all his own.

Shay Hazan — ‘Reclusive Rituals’
(Batov Records)

1. Deloop
2. Pink Collar
3. 123 Birds
4. Basquiat
5. Guimbri Retreat
6. Bob Dealer
7. Afrobeatz
8. Remove the Talk

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• Cosmic
• Jazz
• Spiritual Jazz