India 2008-05-22
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Our perceptions of Indian classical music may have hardly moved on since the Beatles absorbed Ravi Shankar's tingling sitar in the 1960s, but these superb releases from younger artists show how ancient forms are evolving as India emerges as an economic superpower.
Master of the Indian slide-guitar Debashish Bhattacharya adapts the swooning tones of an instrument imported from Hawaii in the 1920s to the open spaces of the traditional raga. The eclectic influences - from Arab-Andalusian to country and western - put one in mind of a Calcutta Ry Cooder.
There are few guitarists who can claim to have created a style quite as individual as that of Debashish Bhattacharya.
He's not just a composer and virtuoso instrumentalist, but has also transformed Indian music by designing his own slide guitars, specially constructed to match the intricacies of Indian classical music.
Like a sitar player, he is backed by tabla and the tinkling sonic wash of the tamboura, but there the similarity ends.
His instrumentals include slow, drifting ragas, based around single-string improvisation, along with the Roma-inspired, gloriously upbeat "Gypsy Anandi", which mixes an Indian melody with western-influenced rhythms - plus echoes of the Hawaiian guitar, which became popular in India back in the 1920s.
There is a surprising emphasis on slower, thoughtful pieces, but the furious, controlled improvisation on the exhilarating "Aviskaar" is a reminder that he is one of India's master musicians.
The album meanwhile, builds into a succession of incendiary dialogues between two instruments long thought incompatible: the north Indian sitar and the south Indian veena. The fact that a woman plays the older, deeper-toned veena brings an interesting slant to the duo's dazzling empathic chemistry.
India isn't perhaps the place you'd look for a guitar talent. But Kolkata's Debashish Bhattacharya is one, and this solo album features music personally connected to him, often reflecting his city's artistic, multicultural aspects.
Favourites are the calm, still pieces such as a moving homage to the holy Ganges "Ganga Kinare", "Rasika", the wonderfully twangy "Kolkata to Kanyakumari" and the fusion feel of the opening Sufi Bhaktiand Hindi/ Muslim ("Sufi Bhakti").
He plays slide guitar, an instrument introduced to the city by legendary Hawaiian guitarist Tau Moe in the 1920s but Indianised by adding resonating strings and drone strings.
A 'must' have album.
