The Score Magazine | Indian Connection Auditorium was decked with said wedding lights shaped like an ornate red rose. “Shoshan means rose,” he says of the soon to be released album with EarthSync. Shye’s journey to Indian shores had less to do with the Taj Mahal and more with another Indian wonder; a concert by maestros’ Ustad Zakir Hussain and Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia in his native Israel. Determined to add to his existing Hebrew musical training, Shye began an exploration of classical Indian music in Rajasthan. His first muse though was Qawwali music. Trust him to do it with a twist, though. “I use a Sufi music base but with lyrics in Hebrew,” he reveals, “Probably why they call me the Hebrew Sufi!” One more in the fusion brigade, I thought. So what’s so different beyond the Hebrew connection, I ventured. “Not getting carried away every time you hear an impressive sound is the key,” he cautions, “There is a distinct connection between music of most cultures. Indian music is closer to Israeli than you’d believe at first sight.” Something most fusion artists say by principle; to the extent of making it a moderate cliché. But not Shye; comprehension is all for him. “It’s like a pizza,” my ears perked up, hunger is perennial after all “Imagine adding greens and vegetables and finally no meat” Clearly not a vegetarian sympathizer! “Or no cheese, for that matter, would it be complete?” The questioner became the questioned – I disagreed. Satisfied, he concluded with an air of great knowing “That’s EXACTLY how it is with fusion; my kind of fusion. Whatever musical element you use, it’s got to be delectable…for all the senses!” Made it sound like the judgment call of one person to me “It actually depends on anyone from the sound engineer to people around-what they think makes an instant impression. But, yes the artist does have the choice.” Well, now you know whom to blame! After his debut album ‘Heeyam’ raised expectations, the hint of ‘Shoshan’ is certainly doing much more. A self-taught flutist, what interested me more than the styles he uses were the shapes and sizes of the flutes he favours. From large pied-piper sorts to the more diminutive variety Shye’s flutes are the stuff that make for weird humour. “I play the flute for very few, selected songs,” he says “And it’s completely by choice!” If a dreamy voice that sways women effortlessly, is what you figured, Shye and his media frenzy was all about, guess again. With a compilation of love poems (Souls Expressions) already published, the softspoken romantic is looking toward his second publication. With an ability to move an audience who know not a word of what he is singing, Shye has been one of the few examples of music being a Universal language; one with lyrics anyway! I suppose the Indian props and folk musicians do help too. And his Indian connection hasn’t ended with the music and the culture and the labels and the festivals. Oh no, India might not be Shye’s motherland but it certainly is where he found his match; matrimonially “My wife is from Ajmer, where we now live,” he reveals of his personal life. Come what may, it looks like Shye and his Indian connection have a lot in store for us. Indians love the rose, after all!
SHUFFLE Dancing Tawhid Liberated
www.myspace.com/heeyam
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Photo Courtesy: G Venkata Krishnan