Another fantastic album from one of my favourite record labels out there! …  What can be classed as brilliance, No Stranger Here intermixes diverse genres and music perspectives from at least three starkly different countries and cultures with deep secular grace, reiterating the timeless search for harmony, universal understanding and love.

Shubha Mudgal‘s rendition of the ancient poetry is the reference point for the poetry written by Ursula Rucker specifically for this album, and the cross-cultural global soundscape of the Business Class Refugees (Patrick Sebag & Yotam Agam) draw a deep, contemporary parallel.

This album is inspired by poetry written by Kabir, a poet of the Bhakti Movement (500 AD – 1700 AD) that swept across India as a rebellion against religious orthodoxy, caste distinctions and Brahmanic (High Priest) rituals. The movement propagated love, peace and harmony, an ancient movement that still has relevance today, against worldwide prevalence of religious bigotry and communal orthodoxy that fuel wars and unrest.

Lyrically, the track A Stranger Here / Pardesi is the pivot of the album’s concept: the poetry Shubha and Ursula render express being and feeling a stranger in this world, of being alone; not finding meaning, mooring or understanding. As prolifically expressed cross time by lovers, artists, saints and devotees – humanity is no stranger to spiritual emptiness, not belonging, intellectual questioning, and the contradiction of being a stranger in a familiar world.