Music » India & Pakistan Music

If the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" is one of the classic examples of raga rock (emphasis on rock), fusing the ancient Indian modal pattern of raga with western rock & roll, Susheela Raman's entire output on her remarkable debut Salt Rain can well be called raga blues, (emphasis on raga). Trained to sing classical Indian music from childhood, the Londoner by birth began experimenting with the vocal style of American blues in adolescence, finding in her early 20s a richly exotic multitextured sound. African rhythms, Asian-chordal dissonance, and a deep womanly voice make for an intoxicating listening experience. Add to this a band of players with origins from Romania to Greece, Spain, Kenya, and beyond. Rather than run together as an ineffective mishmash of multicultural styles, Raman and crew offer up a stunning circus of sound like a masala-Gypsy-klezmer band with one foot in the Delta. Familiar as the soaring voice of Joi, Raman is an intensely exciting new voice not in just world music, but in music as a whole. Salt Rain is both bountiful and devastatingly beautiful. --Paige La Grone

It is with primitive urgency and lustrous clarity rising like flickering embers from a fire that Jonathan Elias's ambitious Prayer Cycle is given voice. Woven together like knotty wool, silk, and fine strands of silvery water, the disparate yet complementary voices of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Alanis Morissette, Yungchen Lhamo, Ofra Haza, the American Boychoir, Salif Keita, and others intertwine in multiple languages with the superb English Chamber Orchestra and Chorus. Prayers of supplication, gratitude, and longing build in layers, one on top of and 'twixt and 'tween the other, as movements titled "Mercy," "Grace," "Innocence," "Compassion," and the like. Remarkably, Elias's Prayer Cycle eloquently captures the ecstasy, pain, grief, and sublime beauty of humanity--as he simply and poignantly writes in his liner notes, "The world we live in is both joyous and cruel." --Paige La Grone

Release Date: 2000-07-18, Audio CD, Angel Records

Release Date: 2000-08-01, Audio CD, Ecm Records

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: KHAN,ALI AKBAR
Title: TRADITIONAL MUSIC OF INDIA
Street Release Date: 04/18/1995
Domestic
Genre: INDIAN

It's hard to imagine this record's release if Anoushka were not the sitar-playing daughter of superstar Ravi Shankar. The package emphasizes Anoushka's moneyed glamour, with everything from her instrument (one of Dad's) to the material--five relatively short ragas written by her guru father--a testament to her gene pool. Anoushka's not a horrible sitar player by any stretch; she's simply nowhere near as proficient, subtle, or exploratory as most of the younger generation of classical sitarists currently recording. Tabla virtuosos Bikram Ghosh and Arup Chattopadhyay keep things moving, and the album's most honest moments arrive during Shankar's steadfast accompaniment of their solos. Nevertheless, a world of promise lies in these tracks. Richard Gehr

While a compilation, Mondo India is essentially a celebration of the work of A.R. Rahman--possibly the greatest of the modern filmi composers, and a man who can seamlessly marry Indian and Western melodies, instruments, and techniques in a way no one has managed before. While there's a track each from his mentor R.D. Burman and his disciple Vishal, it's Rahman's work that sparkles with melody upon melody and an almost infinite sense of invention in the songs. He is to the Bollywood scene what Ennio Morricone or Nino Rota have been to European cinema: people who transcend the idea of score and soundtrack to bring forth pieces like "Dheeme Dheeme" that can stand alone as pieces of music. He's not perfect--the ambient-oriented "Alyaiyo Kanavaa" never really goes anywhere, for example--but the vast majority of Rahman's work outstrips his contemporaries, both Eastern and Western. He's been called a genius; on the basis of this collection, that's not idle chatter. --Chris Nickson

Release Date: 2001-09-11, Audio CD, Angel Records

The distinctive sound of the slide guitar is an intrinsic feature in blues, Hawaiian and Indian music. On Mahima, these traditions meet in the capable hands of two of the world?s greatest slide guitarists, Debashish Bhattacharya and Bob Brozman. In the process, the two have created a true hybrid, a spectacular union of guitarists on a unique album, which also showcases the vocal talents of Sutapa Bhattacharya and tabla master Subhashis Bhattacharya.

SHARMA, SHIV KUMAR-SAMPRADAYA