AMANASKA PRESS RELEASE

From the café culture of urban Melbourne to the villages of Nepal via Albania and the Middle East, Panorama is the innovative and eclectic new album from Australian duo Amanaska, who stylishly navigate unchartered territory by exploring trans-continental European and Asian influences over a modern base of chill-out/electronica, jazz and ambient flavours. Samples of Nepalese folk tunes - sung by local sherpas and recorded on location - have been fused with Eastern European instrumentation, Irish bouzouki and baglama, spiced with modern jazz, orchestral strings, trip hop beats and a touch of lounge. Like the sprawling soundtrack to our global generation, Panorama’s sophistication and complexity is urban cool from the world’s most remote and provincial cultures.

Amanaska features on the highly successful Zen Connection compilation. Here’s what’s been said about their contribution:

‘Panorama is a definite highlight on the compilation with haunting vocals and smooth beats. It flip flops through progressions into a heavenly state of musical being’ 3D World

‘has some of the spiciest ethnic flavours to be found anywhere’ Inpress Magazine

‘an amazing composition’ Beat Magazine

About the artists

AMANASKA are Simon Lewis and Stephen Joyce, a new Australian electronica duo whose pioneering fusion of dance beats, jazz, chill-out and traditional world music set a new benchmark in the world fusion genre. Together, they are frequent-flyer musical nomads, bringing the traditional sounds of remote lands to our post-modern urban culture.
Simon Lewis and Stephen Joyce initially met through various recording sessions for music, film and television. United by their love of exploring and incorporating musical traditions from around the world into their own compositions, they joined to form Amanaska.
Amanaska is a Sanskrit term that refers to the perfect balance of restfulness, alertness and strength and this musical project of the same name explores a similar balance of unusual musical styles, the latest in grooves and sounds, and an eclectic collection of instruments, musicians and singers from a wide range of backgrounds.

REVIEW OF 'PANORAMA' FROM 'IN THE MIX' music magazine 24th June 2003

Amanaska are Simon Lewis and Stephen Joyce , a couple of Melbourne musicians who have independently produced music combining elements of music from across the globe. Here they collaborated as Amanaska (Sanskrit for a perfect balance of strength, restfulness and alertness) to produce an album which is indeed a fine balance of diverse influences, cultures and sounds. Singing sherpas, folk instruments from Ireland and Eastern Europe and sophisticated urban electronica combine sublimely, unlike so many albums where the different cultures clash, rather than compliment each other. Something that appeals to the dance-music lover in me, and so probably will to many on ITM, is that most of the tracks have real groove and swing, as well as emotional depth and interest – you can dance to some, while others are pure listening pleasure.

The sounds are amazingly diverse – Distant Worlds starts with didgeridoo and wanders off with muezzin-like cries, dirges, whispered vocals, and some powerful drum programming, and ranges in tone from wistful lament to dance-floor stomper, and back. Easeback is the track of the album for me, an 8-minute excursion into jazzier territory, with an absolutely sublime muted trumpet and flugelhorn from Peter Knight . The brass chases the keyboards in a joyful spiral, followed at leisure by mellow bass and cool percussion – just beautiful. The album is a magpie collection of shiny musical gems from around the world, collected with care and put together with real skill and flair by a couple of musicians from whom I think we’ll be hearing a lot more.