RISHAD SHAFI PRESENTS: GUNESH

RISHAD SHAFI PRESENTS GUNESH is a compilation album released in 1999 and contains the first two albums of the GUNESH ENSEMBLE: 'Гунеш (Gunesh)' and 'Вижу Землю ( I See Earth)' Previously these two albums were only available on one initial vinyl pressing and have remained rare and most likely quite pricey if you can even find one. As a lover of this type of eclectic world fusion of ethnic traditional sounds and jazz-rock, i am eternally grateful that someone took the initiative to make this music available at a reasonable price.

The one drawback to this compilation is that not only does it contain zero bonus or extra tracks, it also omits two tracks from the debut album: 'Акжа Кепдери (4:03)' and 'Ялан (2:44). It also for some mysterious reason changed the titles of several tracks:

Original GUNESH album / RISHAD SHAFI PRESENTS'

Жиги-Жиги (Девушка) (3:42) / Младший Брат ' The Younger Brother

2. Туни Деряп (5:28) / Плач Шасанем ' The Lamentation Of Shahsanem

3. Акжа Кепдери (4:03) / omitted

4. Восточный Сувенир (4:58) / same title (Oriental Souvenir)

5. Кечпелек (7:08) / Горькая Судьба ' Bitter Fate

6. Ялан (2:44) / omitted

7. Коне Гузер (4:15) / Свидание С Милой ' Date With A Sweetheart

8. Арманым Галды (3:12) / Утолённая Любовь ' Requited Love

The pluses are that the packaging is bilingual in English and Russian and tells the story of the GUNESH ENSEMBLE's history in the Soviet Union era Turkmenistan and of course that this wonderful music is available on CD! This is worth the price of admission for the second album alone but six out of eight tracks off the debut album are quite worth hearing as well. Another band that i would've loved to hear a few more albums from.

Album 1 = 4 stars Album 2 = 5 stars Thus 4.5 rounded up