Watch Tarun Balani’s Ensemble Dharma Bring Airy Jazz on ‘As We Lay Under the Trees’

From the Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, New York, drummer-producer, composer and “sonic storyteller” Tarun Balani and ace musicians Adam O’Farrill (trumpets and effects), Olli Hirvonen (guitars) and pianist/synth and keyboardist Sharik Hasan bring together lightheaded jazz on their latest release “As We Lay Under the Trees.”

The second release from his upcoming EP The Shape of Things to Come – following the dexterous next-level jam that was “Dr. Escher” – the new track was written between February and May 2019 and recorded in June. “The track is inspired by an afternoon stroll in Christ Church Meadow, in Oxford, England,” the artist says in a statement. Balani was coming off his two-month U.K. and Europe tour in 2018 and took a week off in England with his partner. The track allows each instrumentalist to offer their own flavors with nimble instrumentation, including wistful trumpets from O’Farrill, sublime guitar work from Finnish artist Hirvonen and trippy synth and keys from Hasan, as Balani holds it all down with his intricate drum work.

Comprising four tracks, Balani says in a statement that The Shape of Things to Come challenged him when it came to his own identity as composer or performer and the “constructs” around those categorizations. “I say this because these terms are deeply entrenched and come from the European classical music tradition, which was primarily built on the ideas of exclusion, of what ‘is’ and ‘is not’ classical, a composer, and a performer,” he adds. With this record, Balani also wishes to offer more genre-fluid, medium-free stories with acoustic and electronic sounds. The Shape of Things to Come will release on October 2nd.

Watch the video for “As We Lay Under the Trees” below. Stream on more platforms here.