Ori Kaplan & Lihu Melamed - Reverie Ori Kaplan & Lihu Melamed

Reverie is the first full-length collaboration between Ori Kaplan and Lihu Melamed - a cinematic, soul-soaked LP that drifts between modal jazz, cinematic scores and psychedelic rock, released on Batov Records.

Saxophonist and producer Ori Kaplan is best known as a founding member of Balkan Beat Box, for his work with Gogol Bordello and more recently, Shotnez, while Melamed brings a deep studio craft honed over years as an engineer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Together, they create a record that feels both ancient and immediate: music that evokes old biblical films, sun-bleached Western soundtracks and 70s jazz explorations, while remaining playful, spontaneous and deeply human.

There’s a strong cinematic undercurrent throughout Reverie. Think Charles Heston wandering through an Old Testament epic; Ennio Morricone soundtracking a desert horizon; Nino Rota scoring Fellini’s Rome; or Pasolini filming in Ethiopia. Minor-key strings, modal structures and unhurried grooves sit alongside echoes of Mingus and Yusef Lateef, with Ori’s baritone sax and flutes guiding the listener through shifting scenes and moods.

Melamed’s influence pulls in another direction: the spirit of 70s rock and psychedelia - The Doors, Woodstock, King Crimson – with organs, guitars and a sense of scale that balances Kaplan’s love of folk traditions, heavy percussion, Klezmer modes and Middle Eastern textures. The result is a careful blend of composition and instinct, where structure is often nudged aside in favour of feel.

The pair first met during recording sessions for Balkan Beat Box, with Melamed engineering the band’s sixth album. Kaplan quickly realised that Melamed was more than a technician: a musician fluent in piano, guitar, bass and vocals, with an intuitive sense of arrangement.

Despite a fifteen-year age gap, the two shared a musical language, built on curiosity and trust. Reverie captures that connection – a record shaped by craft, but alive with risk and spontaneity. Across the album’s key tracks, those ideas come into focus.