Sanaya Ardeshir has become a figurehead of India’s burgeoning house music scene in the last few years with releases under the name Sandunes. This brought her into the orbit of UK drummer Richard Spaven, known for his work with Flying Lotus, Brainfeeder, Jordan Rakei, Cinematic Orchestra, and many more. Now they’ve teamed up as Spaven x Sandunes and will be releasing a self-titled EP through !K7 on September 11.
Having initially met randomly at a 5am soundcheck, Spaven flew to Mumbai to start collaborating with Sandunes, then they continued to trade files back and forth across oceans, before meeting in Bristol for a four-day session where they completed the EP. Sandunes says about working with Spaven:
“What I’ve loved about working with Richard is watching his deep commitment to the integrity of an idea. A lot of the initial themes were built around the idea of sharing a stage and including the audience in our collaboration. Eventually, however, the music we were building revealed a sound-map of sorts between our worlds of influence, inspired from the neighbourhoods where the music was started and finished.”
“Tree of Life” is the first offering to be shared from Sandunes x Spaven and encapsulates all of the promise suggested by the above quote. Despite the intense interpersonal work that is evident between the two, “Tree of Life” is an outwardly-looking piece, stretching out its aural tendons to crowds of listeners, drawing them all together in musical reverie. Sandunes’ synths are light and precise, recalling an indistinct but beautiful locale you may have visited in your life, while Spaven’s drumming begins similarly diffuse, building the scaffold for the melodic dream. Before long a driving synth plunges in, Spaven’s drumming ramps up a few notches in complexity, and you’re off on a world tour inside your mind, flanked by gorgeous wind instrumentation as you glide.
You can hear “Tree of Life” below or via your preferred streaming service.
Spaven x Sandunes will be released on September 11 through !K7.
You can find Richard Spaven on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
