Premiere: Rajesh Mehta Blends Trumpet, Drone and Ragas on Mystique-Heavy ‘Naga Red’

The Indian-American artist’s new EP ‘Naga 7’ arrives just after his album ‘Magalasy Breath’ with Sky Cage Quartet

Anurag Tagat
Oct 19, 2023

Trumpeter/composer Rajesh Mehta. Photo: Courtesy of Subcontinental Records

Indian-American composer and trumpeter Rajesh Mehta’s first music video ever, for the piece “Naga Red” off his new EP Naga 7 builds just the kind of mystique and allure of a being amidst nature that he intended.

In the video created by Suhfecto and commissioned by Bengaluru-based label Subcontinental Records – who released Naga 7 and Mehta’s album Magalasy Breath with the Sky Cage Quartet – there’s a female figure who moves between structures and verdant surroundings at an ashram in Rishikesh. Mehta says, “I was asked merely to provide footage of me playing in a naturalistic setting, and footage of me playing was shot by my wife in a beautiful botanical garden in Duisburg Germany where I live. The bamboo trees in the background of me playing fits the Rishikesh ashram footage which the filmmaker chose so well that most people think that I was filmed in India itself!”

The release Naga 7 was born out of a live solo performance in a museum in Oslo, one that Mehta gave as part of a music and architecture workshop for students. “The dark, barrel-vaulted room of the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum was nevertheless a unique experience with

one of the highest room size to reverb ratios that I have ever performed in,” Mehta says in a description for the two-track EP.

In September, Mehta – who is Indian-origin and created hybrid trumpets such as the drumpet in Amsterdam and a “Naga Phoenix trumpet” in Singapore – released Magalasy Breath via Subcontinental Records as well. It celebrates human beings’ “precarious relationship to nature and all beautiful creatures” which need to be protected. He adds, “I am actively promoting my quartet and the Malagasy Breath CD and looking forward to performing a new live version of the quartet piece with the extraordinary singing of the Madagascaran lemurs in the background in festivals in 2024.”

Watch the video for “Naga Red” below. Get ‘Naga 7’ and ‘Magalasy Breath’ here.