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Tracks
1. Drive East from Andalucia (8.06)
2. Thunder in my heart (10.17)
3. Falling for you (7.05)
4. Sadness can be beautiful (12.20)
5. Carnatic stream (5.19)
6. Long drive home (9.07)
For tour information please contact info@darbar.org.uk
All compositions by Kala Ramnath
Kala Ramnath - Violin
Abhijit Banerjee - Tabla and Pakhawaj
Somnath Roy - Ghatam, Cahon, Dumbek,
Morsing, Duff, Madal, Manjeera, Kanjira & Clave.
Additional arrangements and percussion arrangement on 'Long drive home' by Derek Roberts
Album Code:
801786 70842 1
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Kala Ramnath needs little introduction these days and is considered by many to be one of the finest violinists India has to offer. Here we find her in Yashila - a new Sense World Music collective, featuring exciting percussionists Abhijit Banerjee and Somnath Roy. Their debut CD 'Drive East' is an electrifying brand of New India Fusion which melds the best of North and South Indian classical tradition with a hint of flavours from other world regions such as Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
Yashila is a trio whose collective creative imagination and identity draw on and reveal considerable talents and an artistic vision cross-pollinated by regional difference and very different life experiences. To my mind, aside from Yashila's musicality, it is their economy of touch, so unusual in musical marriages, that sets this music apart from the run-of-the-mill. Yashila's music combines two vital qualities - the active and the reflective.
Abhijit Banerjee was born in Ranchi, close to Calcutta, in the state of Bihar. He provides the group with its distinctive tabla and pakhawaj (double-headed barrel drum) muscularity and finesse.
Madras-born Kala Ramnath is a seventh-generation hereditary musician in a musical dynasty unique in the subcontinent that originally established itself in the court of Tripunittura -- in contemporary Kerala -- in a haloed era that allowed singer-musician to blossom under artistic patronage. The family's last four generations have specialised in the violin. Violin in this context remains the structurally unmodified Western violin, the only adjustment being the instrument's playing position and tuning. Initially the family made music on the violin in South India's Karnatic or Carnatic art-music system's style. Two generations ago, with her aunt, Dr. N. Rajam's adoption of the Hindustani or Northern Indian tradition, this violin dynasty diversified. Kala Ramnath represents the second generation of principal soloists in the family to opt for the Hindustani tradition.
Somnath Roy was born in Howrah, West Bengal and initially he studied flute. He gravitated towards percussion, studying and taking training in a variety of percussion instruments including non-Indian percussion, the dholak (one of northern India's defining double-headed barrel folk drums) and the high-ringing ghatam (tuned clay pot) that so sings a very different Song of the South. One of the striking things about this trio is the complimentary nature of their interlocking musicality.
Drive East makes no pretence to being a classical project of any sort, but all of Kala's compositions are still rooted in rãg and tãl (rhythm cycle). The group's choices of rhythm cycles go far deeper than the highly versatile, but common 16-beat tãl which, in Western terms, is analogous to 4/4. Yashila goes for cycles in five, seven, nine and twelve. This is improvised composition with its roots deep in the subcontinent's soil. The end result is self-standing, individual compositions freed from the conventions of classical music performance. Yashila is an expression of three people's creative journeying. It is the kind of creative imagination only realised when the opposites of strict form and spontaneity commingle to produce beauty. This process has been enhanced by another creative element - producer Derek Roberts, who has acted as the fourth band member in some respects. His percussion arrangements, general creative input and production approach have clearly had a major impact on this work. Drive East is the result of a remarkable collaboration and is another demonstration of the seemingly boundless energy of Sense World Music and the musicians who work with the label.
Track 1: Drive East From Andalusia
This was the first composition that the group recorded together. It introduces Drive East's leitmotiv of journeying. It is not coincidental that Kala does much of her composing while travelling. The first half of this composition is based on the Hindustani rãg Ramkali, after which there is an extended percussion interlude followed by a swing into Basant Mukhari, a rãg whose feel conveys a sense of journeying as, she explains, it mirrors a scale in the Spanish flamenco tradition. Ramkali is a rãg with a touch of Persian in it. The piece is like moving from India to Persia to Spain and back and, since Abhijeet and Somnath were there when she composed it, it set the mood for Drive East's unfolding.
Track 2: Thunder In My Heart
Set in Brindabani Sarang with a dip into Malhar, this monsoon-season piece was composed during the album's recording sessions and grew out of the session's progress. It summons images of thunder and lightening, rain and heat. Brindabani refers to Lord Krishna's Brindaban birthplace. The Malhar element conjures those first rains and the smell of the dry sand or earth as it soaks up the rainfall.
Track 3: Falling For You
The central images of this composition of romantic love, suffused, if the listener's mind turns to colour, with peach into yellow tones, fell into place for Kala in the summer of 2005 in the United States. It is set in Maru Bihag.
Track 4: Sadness Can Be Beautiful
The inspiration for this composition in Charukeshi was hearing the South Indian violin virtuoso L. Subramaniam play a musical figure. It played over and over again in her head until it fledged and flew as this piece. It was composed while touring in 2004.
Track 5: Carnatic Stream
Carnatic Stream came about in 2005 whilst preparing to play with the American saxophonist George Brooks -- then about to tour in India -- and was composed at her home in Bombay. It has Kirvani as its launch pad, a South Indian rãg that has attained no little measure of popularity outside its birthplace, having entered the Northern Indian bloodstream through the classical repertoires of such celebrated principal soloists as Ravi Shankar and Shivkumar Sharma and, more recently in an 'applied Rajasthani' context through Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.
Track 6: Long Drive Home
This composition in Asa Mand captures the mood of wanting to slip into sleep, that surrender to sweet dreams. It was composed on the spot in the studio in response to Abhijeet's rhythmical phrases.
Abhijit Banerjee - tabla and pakhawaj
Kala Ramnath - violin
Somnath Roy - ghatam, cahon, dumbek, morsing, duff, madal, manjeera, kanjira & clave.
Derek Roberts - additional arrangements and percussion arrangement on
Long Drive Home
All compositions by Kala Ramnath.
© Ken Hunt with Kala Ramnath 2006
Ken Hunt is a full-time freelance writer, broadcaster, translator and lyricist
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