Introducing “East is East”, the latest album from Infusion Baroque. This fourth album from the Montreal-based ensemble is a fusion of Western Baroque, Persian and...

Introducing “East is East”, the latest album from Infusion Baroque. This fourth album from the Montreal-based ensemble is a fusion of Western Baroque, Persian and Indian music traditions. Featuring collaborators Amir Amiri, Hank Knox, Thibault Bertin-Maghit, Hamin Honari, Vidita Kanniks, and Shawn Mativetsky, the thirteen tracks see Western and Eastern musical traditions find common ground in transcultural music.

In “Bergamasca” and “La Folia”, baroque composers are realized with Persian santur, tombak, and daf alongside the Western harpsicord, violin, cello, and recorder. Amiri’s compositions “Raghse Choobi” and “Aghrab” sees Persian folk melodies from Iran and Azerbaijan brought West, while “Saghi Nameh” and “Cortege” make use of Persian harmony alongside the textures of western counterpoint. Vidita Kanniks brings arrangements of traditional Hindustani melody in “Sandhya Raga”, with her own vocals dancing nimbly above Shawn Mativetsky’s Indian tabla and Baroque and Persian instrumentalists.

With a title inspired by “The Ballad of East and West” by Rudyard Kipling, “East is East” is a collaboration that ignores the borders that divide us and finds the musical common ground that unites us from the farthest corners of the earth.

Find “East is East” wherever you stream your music.