LUMiN

In the Bay Area, multi-instrumentalist Jef Stott (ex-Stellamara) teamed with acid jazz musician Michael Emenau and Kazakhstan-born singer/songwriter Irina Mikhailova to launch Lumin in the late '90s. The project fused tribal trip-hop with rhythmic influences drawn from Middle Eastern, medieval European, classical, and electronic ambient traditions, yielding three albums across a decade before the members turned to solo work.

Stott and Emenau began the group without Mikhailova, issuing the debut Datura on City of Tribes Records in 1998. She joined for the darker follow-up Hadra, released in 2002 on World Class Records, contributing vocals and choral arrangements that integrated Bulgarian choir, Sufi trance, drum'n'bass, and downtempo passages with Turkish and Arabic instruments such as the tambur, tablas, bendir, darbuka, riqq, and zills. The trio's final, more upbeat album Ketri came out in 2007 on the Japanese label Dakini Records.