Debashish Bhattacharya - The Sound of the Soul

First published on The Quietus.

Debashish Bhattacharya
The Sound of the Soul
Abstract Logix (76 mins)

Debashish Bhattacharya was not the first to bring Hindustani classical music to the slide guitar, but he has certainly brought the field its most recent international recognition – helped by successful collaborations with musicians such as John McLaughlin. The Sound of the Soul is Bhattacharya’s first solo release since his 2017 tribute to Hawaiian guitar master Tau Moe; this time he moves back to the classical frame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of his gurus, sarod pioneer Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Here, Bhattacharya plays the chaturangui, an instrument of his own design that looks as beautiful as it sounds. A sort-of mix between a hollow-neck lap steel guitar and a hollow-body Gibson, it has a bunch of sympathetic strings that makes it distinctively Indian in its appearance and in the way each note rings out into the ether.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

Gonora Sounds - Hard Times Never Kill

First published on The Quietus.

Gonora Sounds
Hard Times Never Kill
The Vital Record / Dust to Digital (54 mins)

There’s a good chance you’ve already seen Daniel Gonora and his son Isaac play before. A video of them busking in Harare has been bouncing around social media since about 2016, usually without credit. Surrounded by an attentive crowd, Daniel, sitting low and with eyes closed from blindness, plays an intricate piece on an electric guitar through a strained amplifier while Isaac, then only twelve years old, shows his energetic mastery of the groove on a beat-up drum set, all rounded off by the infectious refrain of “Go bhora!”. That video blew up, racking up over ten million views. Now, six years later and with a full band and a real drum kit, Gonora Sounds – as they are known – have their first album of spicy and sunny sungura music.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

Ustad Saami - East Pakistan Sky

First published on The Quietus.

Ustad Saami
East Pakistan Sky
Glitterbeat Records (36 mins)

Naseeruddin Saami is a master – an ustad – of khayal, a highly-ornamented style of Hindustani classical music. His delicate voice and intricate command of a centuries-old tradition is capable of casting spells. Saami’s style is unique. His personal system divides each octave into forty-nine surti (microtones). For comparison, European music theory divides the octave into twelve, and Hindustani theory has mostly agreed on twenty-two. The core melodic elements of each piece – the raag – only use seven notes, Saami’s forty-nine surti gives him many times more options to inject the slightest nuance into every syllable, introducing changes so small that the conscious brain may not register them, but that are instead felt in the emotions of the listener. Now seventy-seven years old, Saami is still considered the only master of this surti system.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

Khalab & M’berra Ensemble - M’berra

First published on The Quietus.

Khalab & M’berra Ensemble
M’berra
Real World Records (37 mins)

Real World Records’ latest release harks back to the label’s grand tradition of intercultural collaborative fusion as Italian DJ and producer Raffaele Costantino – better known as Khalab – meets and mingles with the musician residents of the M’berra refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania.

M’berra has existed since the early 1990s, when people fled violence in neighbouring northern Mali. Its population has fluctuated with relative periods of peace and war in the region, but recently there have been as many as 60,000 people living in the desert settlement. Khalab visited M’berra in 2017 to meet its people, record its sounds and, it turns out, to create a 14-strong ensemble of Tuareg and Hassaniyya musicians, playing their own music in their own styles together. Among the musicians are members of groups such as Tartit, Tafalawist and Imarhan Timbuktu – from the population of a refugee camp, a supergroup.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.

Kiazi Malonga - Tembo Kia Ngoma

First published on The Quietus.

Kiazi Malonga
Tembo Kia Ngoma
Red Tone Records (45 mins)

In the Bantu languages spoken throughout Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, ngoma represents an important part of musical and social culture. The literal translation is usually given as ‘drum’, but it more accurately refers to a unified concept of drum-dance-song-music. You can beat the ngoma, or sing it, or dance it, and in doing so, create ngoma. Ngoma is at once playing, moving and listening – it is by nature reciprocal and collaborative. Tembo Kia Ngoma explores the drum and its wider meanings in sound in an impressive and considered debut from Congolese-American artist Kiazi Malonga.

Read the full review over at The Quietus.