Born and based in Amsterdam, Yigal Roos, better known as ‘Ascension,’ started his musical journey at the tender age of 13. Recording compositions to cassettes, and jamming with friends was something that the composer, producer, and performer would regularly do. He even went on to construct a home studio for himself. After high school, he went to study modern music at Rimon School Of Music, Israel. Here, he got introduced to be-pop, and salsa, and also joined a prog-rock band. He also holds a BA degree from the Haarlem Business School, SAE where he studied recording technology. This eventually led the 47-year-old artist to live and study in Spain where he formed his own band and performed across Spain. Upon returning to the Netherlands, he founded a production company called ‘Fortress Music’ where he got to meet musicians and learn more about recording and production.
His latest EP “Aja Savaria,” aims to fuse two worlds of music – ancient traditional Indian music and modern-day electronic music production. This unique record is done in collaboration with Indian Classical Vocalist Samhitha Mundkur and was released on the 13th of July. The artists met while they were attending a program at the Isha Yoga Center in Coimbatore. They later got together for a jam session which eventually led to them deciding to perform two songs during a live stream. However, due to technical issues, the stream got cut midway. Nevertheless, the two artists managed to record the rest of the songs which can be found on Ascension’s YouTube channel.
The EP contains the highly danceable ‘Aja Savaria’ including 2 club remixes: one geared towards the Ethnic House genre( Space Club Remix) and one Deep House Version( Deep Club Remix). It also has the sensitive Kajeria, a fragile hymn-type song set over a lush electronic arrangement. A mix between house, techno, world, and ecstatic music, the project took almost 2 years to complete and was recorded at the artist’s own studio.
The artist was very impressed with the Indian musical heritage and said that he has “so much to learn.” He also added that he looks forward to collaborating with more artists in the future and seeing mixtures of different musical styles emerge in perfect harmony. We’re sure that it will be equally amazing.
