Songlines,
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Indo-blues testifyin’ of the
most righteous kind
Starting an album with its most radiofriendly and least challenging track is an understandable strategy. ‘Make a Better World’, the track that kicks off proceedings, is a grandparent-friendly song that’s rather too close to Bobby McFerrinstyle chumminess. All the sounds are powerfully present, however – the production on this album renders each instrument so precisely, you feel you could reach out and touch them. And there’s the first of many insanely good solos from Salil Bhatt, wobbling the strings of his satvik veena (a 20-string Indian hybrid guitar) so hard that they sound like melting rubber bands. The next track comes straight in – in the same key – as if to announce that now the real business is starting, with Bhatt immediately shifting the mood into that glowering, sultry atmosphere that Indian string instruments control so well.
This album is the second collaboration between Bhatt and the Canadian blues guitarist Doug Cox. The pair are accompanied by Ramkumar Mishra throughout, and joined by guests such as Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, on mohan veena (a 13-string cousin to his son’s instrument) and jazz vocalist John Boutte. Mishra is on astonishing form. He’s much more vocal than on the first album, seizing upon any opportunity to slip in extra rhythmic details. And while it’s the instrumentals that provide the jaw-dropping moments, Boutte comes into his own on ‘I Scare Myself’, an indigo-dark song that’s a fusion of the most organic kind. It’s thrilling to hear Boutte’s time-honoured lounge-blues inflections bend with the Eastern melody, withoutgiving up an inch of their own style.
Matthew Milton
09/02/09