An old, online only release, this is one of my go-to experimental albums. Alexaziz, aka Aleksei Malakhov, an original Solntsetsvety member/collaborator from Minsk, recorded six tracks while in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Suite’s crystallization of Alek’s loneliness, fascination and feeling of strangeness in a different place is the fog that binds these pieces together. Regional musical forms mix with Alek’s own background as a hardcore, psych and as a rock guitarist in his ex-Soviet homeland. Radio samples, field recordings and prayers move as a mist on the recordings. I’ve never heard something so emotionally accurate to the exhilarating and suffocating conflictions of being alone in a strange place.
After years of teaching in New York City, Aleksei left his troubled birthplace in Belarus (where his instruments remain due to customs) for good and emigrated to Canada with his family. He now lives in Toronto where he is have him working in a factory. I hope one day he’ll find some gear and start a band with me. (HAZE Net, h-a-z-e.org) Kristel Jax