They say music has no language. A collaboration between Baul singer Paban Das Baul and guitarist Sam Mills, the album Real Sugar says it all. The songs featured here are sung at fairs and festivals in the villages of Bengal and wherever Bauls congregate. Baul music has never been a caste or classical tradition and has always been a motivating, rhythmic way of reaching across boundaries and creating a resonance for anyone receptive to it, regardless of their background. Baul songs are there to wake people up to their own hidden treasures, and within these modern compositions, Paban Das Baul has mingled many Bengali traditions, Baul, Fakiri, Panchali and Pahari, giving another view into the sheer beauty of the songs.
Paban Das Baul & Sam Mills - Dil Ki Doya :
Paban Das Baul & Sam Mills - Porojonome :
Paban Das Baul & Sam Mills - Mon Fakira :
Paban Das Baul & Sam Mills - Choncholo Mon :
Paban Das Baul & Sam Mills - Mon Moti :
Real Sugar album also features ex-23 Skidoo member Fritz Catlin, who helped to program and produce the record, and bassist Sketch (formerly of Lynx).
Kiran Ahluwalia was born in India, grew up in Canada, and now lives with her husband, guitarist and musical collaborator, Rez Abbasi, a native of Pakistan, in New York City. A longtime follower of Ghazals, she is one of the few modern artists to compose new music for this form of poetry. Kiran immersed herself in Indian classical music and Ghazals from the time she was seven. At the same time, she travelled throughout Punjab, immersing herself in the style and approach of Punjabi folk songs.
Sometimes an album turns up, that just gets under your skin. Wanderlust does that and more. Kiran Ahluwalia creates an intoxicating world of heightened emotions, something that Ghazal singers in India have been doing for hundreds of years. Most numbers in the album are accompanied by typical Indian instruments like Tabla and Sarangi, as well as the Harmonium. The CD was released in the US in 2007 and in Europe in 2008. All of her albums have been nominated for JUNO Awards, the highest musical honour in Canada.
The collaboration story of the Indian and western music is not very old. Until the mid 1950s all Indian music was contained under just two genres, Classical and Film music. Later on the genre of Devotional music, that included Bhajan and Qawwali, was seperated from the Classical genre, as musicians started using western instruments in the compositions. Fusion became a genre in the year 1955, when Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan performed with western musicians in the US. During the 1960s, various other legends including Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and Tabla wizard Alla Rakha also worked with their western counterparts. This trend of Indian fusion music was appreciated and adopted by the majority of people, especially westerners. The 'other' music had finally arrived.
In the 1970s Fusion music started transforming rapidly. New sub-genres of Fusion music like Indo Jazz, Indian Funk, Vedic Metal, Raga Rock captured the imagination of music lovers all around the globe. Indians expatriates of the West Indies created their own genre of Chutney music, a heady mix of Reggae and Bhojpuri. Along with improved economic conditions of the western world came its bye-product, mental stress. Indian Yoga tradition, which until then was considered to be a practice followed by the superstitious natives of the subcontinent gained popularity in the west. With Yoga came Yoga music, sometimes referred to as Ambient music. The psychedelic properies of Indian music was rediscovered again. The sub-genres of Chillout music, Lounge music and New Age music started taking shape. Musicians all over the world found Indian content, both vocal and instrumental music, a perfect infusion. By this time, an absolutely new genre, World music had also arrived.
TJ Rehmi - Dil Mai Durad :
Bally Sagoo - Dil Cheez :
Thievery Corporation - Transcendence :
Indian Vibes - Mathar (Discovery of India Mix) :
This blog is a good opportunity for me to present and introduce to you such experimental music. Music that has Indian content, in some form or the other, or that of other parts of the subcontinent including countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal only will find place here. The songs, although of full length, will be highly compressed, just good enough for sampling purpose only. Normally Fusion music is recorded under sophisticated studio environment, often with special sound effects, that can be best heard only with the original CDs or in superbly encoded digitised form. So if you like the music here go ahead and buy it. The only problem is, you won't find it in every music store down the street.
Welcome to Indian Rasa. A Rasa ('juice' or 'essence', Sanskrit: रस्) denotes an essential mental state and is the dominant emotional theme of a work of art or the primary feeling that is evoked in the person that views, reads or hears such a work.
Although the concept of Rasa is fundamental to many forms of Indian art including dance, music, musical theatre, cinema and literature, the treatment, interpretation, usage and actual performance of a particular Rasa differs greatly between different styles and schools of Abhinaya, and huge regional differences exist even within one style.
Rasa refers not merely to the soul of art, but also, to the soul of all things. By this, one not only means the innate quality of a color or sound, but also the more abstract ambience and mood of a geographical region, person or even season. Every component of the world has a character or Rasa of its own.
