Bhajan Bhoy
To Love Is To Love (vol. 2)
Repress! Ajay Saggar is Bhajan Bhoy. Since his debut album was released in June 2020 ('Bless Bless') he has been receiving critical acclaim for his recorded output and his live shows. On Friday 10 March 2023, Bhajan Bhoy releases TWO separate albums on the same day. These will be Bhajan Bhoy's third and fourth albums, and a joint release on highly respected independent labels Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube Records (USA). Drawing from the deep triple bad acid well of psychedelia, Bhajan Bhoy further shifts the parameters surrounding the perceptions aligned to this genre with a beautiful and meditative set of tracks. A kaleidoscopic sonic universe within which you will find raga-esque musical excursions, meditative Dream House drone, beautiful folk inflected jams on a Laurel Canyon tip, electronic dreamscapes and heavy guitar riffola where sometimes two chords are enough. Listening to the two albums and you could imagine Pandit Pran Nath, Spacemen 3, Pauline Oliveros, and Don Cherry drinking the same psilocybin tea beforehand, and then embarking to the studio to lay down the jams. This is the sound of freedom! Byron Coley/The Wire (January 2023) said of the previous release 'Shanti Shanti Shanti': "another fine release by Dutch musician Ajay Saggar. His basic thrust is modern psychedelia, minted from radio snippets, dub reverb flapping, elegant guitar washing, electronic drones interwoven with splashes of mock jaw harp or splashy drums, and a generally stoned atmosphere. And the concept is spectrally good!" The songs for 'To Love Is To Love (Vols. 1+2)' were recorded and mixed between January 2021 and June 2022 at Soundation Studio... Ajay's sonic laboratory. As he states: "it was a highly focused and intensive period of work for me. The pandemic allowed me to go and work in the studio all day and into the night pretty much everyday. I'd never felt more focused in my pursuit of making a set of songs. It yielded a body of work that I am incredibly proud of, and think is some of the best stuff I've done. I was fortunate enough to have some incredibly talented players join me on some songs (Ab Baars, Gayle Brogan, Sheila Bosco, Holly Habstritt Gaal, Mees Siderius, Arvind Ganga, Aaron Lumley, Elsa v/d Linden, Ditmer Weertman). The songs evolved in a very organic manner and they are part of a journey, which is the reason why there are two separate albums... the one album feeds into the other. 'Shanti Shanti Shanti' was the album before these ones and was the first part of this triptych."