MUSIC

After the box-office failure of my second film Aparajito ("The Undefeated"), I was a bit undecided about what kind of film I should make next. After thinking about it, I decided to make a film about singing and dancing. I chose a popular short story, Jalsaghar, about the last days of a feudal baron who loved music. I was lucky enough to be able to employ important singers and musicians for this film. As a composer, I chose the great sitar virtuoso Vilayat Khan, who was ably assisted by his younger brother, Imrat Khan, also a sitar virtuoso. Both together provided superb solos and duets for the film's background music, which, with the exception of the violin, uses only Indian instruments. The entire background music is based on raga.

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality was the central purpose of the final four decades of her life, an often-overlooked awakening that largely took shape during her four-year marriage to John Coltrane and after his 1967 death. By 1983, Alice had established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of Los Angeles. She quietly began recording music from the ashram, releasing it within her spiritual community in the form of private press cassette tapes. On May 5, Luaka Bop will release the first-ever compilation of recordings from this period, making these songs available to the wider public for the first time. Entitled ‘World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,’ the release is the first installment in a planned series of spiritual music from around the globe; curated, compiled and distributed by Luaka Bop.
This powerful, largely unheard body of work finds Alice singing for the first time in her recorded catalog, which dates back to 1963 and includes appearances on six John Coltrane albums, alongside Charlie Haden and McCoy Tyner, and 14 albums as bandleader starting with her Impulse! debut in 1967 with ‘A Monastic Trio.’ The songs featured on the Luaka Bop release have been culled from the four cassettes that Alice recorded and released between 1982 and 1995: ‘Turiya Sings,’ ‘Divine Songs,’ ‘Infinite Chants,’ and ‘Glorious Chants.’ The digital, cassette and CD release will feature eight songs. The double-vinyl edition features two additional songs, “Krishna Japaye” from 1990’s ‘Infinite Chants, and the previously unreleased “Rama Katha” from a separate ‘Turiya Sings’ recording session.
Luaka Bop teamed with Alice’s children to find the original master tapes in the Coltrane archive. The recordings were prepared for re-mastering by the legendary engineer Baker Bigsby (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane), who had overseen the original sessions in the 80s and 90s. The compilation showcases a diverse array of recordings in addition to Alice’s first vocal work: solo performances on her harp, small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. The release is dotted with eastern percussion, synthesizers, organs and strings, making for a mesmerizing, even otherworldly, listen. Alice was inspired by Vedic devotional songs from India and Nepal, adding her own music sensibility to the mix with original melodies and sophisticated song structures. She never lost her ability to draw from the bebop, blues and old-time spirituals of her Detroit youth, fusing a Western upbringing with Eastern classicism. In all, these recordings amount to a largely untold chapter in the life story of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
In addition to the recordings, GRAMMY-winning music historian Ashley Kahn has written extensive liner notes on the collection. The package also includes a series of interviews with those who knew Alice best, conducted by Dublab’s Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and an as-told-to interview between musician Surya Botofasina (who was raised on Alice’s ashram) and journalist Andy Beta. 2017 marks what would have been Alice’s 80th year of life, as well as the 10th anniversary of her passing. Alice will be celebrated at events throughout the United States, Europe and South America in the coming year. With this in mind, the time is right to bring this meaningful piece of Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.

Born in 1966, Uday Bhawalkar studied Dhrupad for more than 12 years, following the traditional method of transmission from guru to disciple (guru-shishya parampara), under the supervision of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, and in 1987 was awarded the Dagar Swarna Padak prize by the legendary Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dagar Sahab of Senior Dagar Brothers – all three of them members of the Dagar Family who have been passing on this music tradition since the 15th century. In addition to performing at the most prestigious classical Indian music festivals since a young age, Uday Bhawalkar has collaborated internationally with artists from different music traditions, amongst whom the choreographer Astad Deboo and the Ensemble Modern of contemporary music. He has also contributed to the soundtrack of films such as Cloud Door by Mani Kaul, Mr & Mrs Iyer by Aparna Sen, Anahat by Amol Palekar, and more. AngelicA invited Uday Bhawalkar to perform in Bologna twice, in 2008 and 2019. Despite a decades-long career his production has been poorly documented on records, and it is now enriched by Raga Yaman (IDA 053), on which he is accompanied by Manik Munde on the pakhavaj (a two-headed horizontal drum) and by Aniruddha Joshi and Chintan Upadhyay on tanpuras. The recording is not of one of his concerts in Bologna (during which he performed the same raga), but of a rendition of the same piece considered particularly significant, which had been privately pressed on CD by Bhawalkar only for personal use in 2006. Raga Yaman is a raga, based on an heptatonic scale, considered one of the most important and fundamental of the Hindustani tradition. It is often the first to be taught to students, but it also offers great opportunities of improvisation, and it is a raga that has been recorded by historic artists such as Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Pran Nath (in the Yaman Kalyan variant), and Uday’s maester himself Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, on one of his CDs from 1991 in which one of the two accompanist on the tanpura was Uday himself.

The legendary Dilip Roy, who was the arranger and orchestra leader for almost all of Ananda Shankar's recordings, recorded a rare session in 1983. The record was sold only on Air India flights as a souvenir, but now it has been miraculously reissued in analog format! This is a DJ-friendly work that combines the moody and exotic sitar with electric guitar, synthesizer, flute, organ, and weird and wonderful percussion sounds. Rare Groove is the Eastern Way, the return of such an exotic masterpiece!

The extraordinary debut album from percussionist, drummer and producer Sarathy Korwar – “Day To Day” – fuses traditional folk music of the Sidi community in India (combining East African, Sufi and Indian influences) with jazz and electronics. It’s a collaborative release by Ninja Tune with The Steve Reid Foundation – a charitable trust established by Brownswood / Gilles Peterson with the dual objective of helping musicians in crisis and also supporting emerging talent. Sarathy is an alumnus of the Foundation’s development program, mentored by Four Tet, Emanative, Floating Points, Koreless and Gilles Peterson – all trustees of the foundation.

“Sarathy instantly caught my attention when he said he wanted to make an album that embraced both Indian folk music and jazz - two worlds that have had a big influence on me. His album succeeds in bringing these things together in an elegant way, but it’s his own style and ideas that come through the most in the music. Refreshingly different, this is a deep and powerful listening experience.” Four Tet

The Steve Reid Foundation commemorates the life and legacy of legendary percussionist/drummer Steve Reid. It is fitting that Sarathy’s album follows the lineage and spirit of Reid who himself left New York and took on a spiritual pilgrimage through Africa in the mid-1960s. For three years he journeyed through West Africa, playing with people along the way, including Fela Kuti, Guy Warren and Randy Weston. The musical roots and routes of the Black Atlantic have been discussed and documented extensively, but Sarathy is highlighting a different dispersal of people in the other direction, from East Africa to India. The Sidis travelled to India from Africa as merchants, sailors, indentured servants and mercenaries from as far back as 628 AD and have settled in India ever since.

Conceived on an extended trip to rural Gujarat, followed by sessions at Dawn Studios in Pune, Sarathy made field recordings of The Sidi Troupe of Ratanpur whose vocals and percussion form the backbone of “Day To Day”. The troupe features five drummers – their polyrhythms reflect their African heritage, in contrast to traditional Indian drummers who play in unison. Likewise, the Malunga bows (there are only 4 or 5 players in India) bear a striking resemblance to those found in Africa.

“The record is about how we individually and collectively live from day to day. The everyday rituals and tasks that bind us together, it’s a celebration of the trivial and mundane,” explains Sarathy. The colourful handmade rag quilts that the Sidis make using everyday fabrics serve as a perfect metaphor for the record: “The Sidi women make these amazing collages of colour using everyday rags,” he says. “That’s how I see this album”.

Born in the US, Sarathy Korwar grew up in Ahmedabad and Chennai in India. He began playing tabla aged 10 but was also drawn to the American music that he heard on the radio and that leaked through the doorway of his local jazz music shop, Ahmad Jamal and John Coltrane were early discoveries. At 17, Sarathy moved to Pune to study for a degree in Environmental Science, but instead dedicated his time to music: practicing tabla under the tutelage of Rajeev Devasthali, translating his skills to the Western drumkit and playing as a session musician. Finishing his studies, Sarathy began to think about pursuing a career in music and moved to London, where he trained as a classical tabla player under the guidance of Sanju Sahai and graduated with a MMus in Performance from SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) focusing on the adaptation of Indian classical rhythmic material to non-Indian percussion instruments.

Working the angles in London’s jazz scene, Sarathy connected with Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming), Cara Stacey (Kit Records) and played with clarinettist Arun Ghosh. He was, however, itching to create under his own name and he started researching and formulating the concept for “Day To Day” and planning a trip to India to record the Sidis. It was late in 2014 when Sarathy heard about the Steve Reid Foundation. He applied with a three-minute video explaining his vision for the record and was accepted onto the project to be mentored by the foundation’s patrons: Four Tet, Floating Points, Gilles Peterson, Koreless and Emanative (aka Nick Woodmansey who mixed the album).

Following on from last year’s acclaimed Vrindavan 1982 by rudra veena master Z.M. Dagar, Black Truffle is thrilled to present a pair of archival releases from the Dagar Brothers, among the most revered 20th century exponents of the ancient North Indian dhrupad tradition. The vocal duo of Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar (sometimes referred to as the ‘senior’ Dagar Brothers to distinguish them from their younger siblings, Zahiruddin and Faiyazuddin Dagar), belonged to the nineteenth generation of a family of musicians in which dhrupad tradition has been kept alive through patrilinear transmission, each generation undergoing a rigorous education of many years’ duration that can include singing up to twelve hours each day.

Famed for the meditative purity of their approach to dhrupad, the Dagar Brothers helped to keep the tradition alive in the years after Indian independence in 1947, when the royal courts that had traditionally patronised dhrupad musicians were abolished. Many Western listeners were first introduced to dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers’ tour of Europe in 1964-65 and their LP in UNESCO’s ‘Musical Anthology of the Orient’ collection, both organised by pioneering musicologist and scholar of Indian culture Alain Daniélou. Documents from this tour are especially precious, as Moinuddin Dagar passed away in 1966. Unheard until now, Berlin 1964 – Live (released alongside BT114, a newly discovered studio session from the same trip) documents a concert held at the Charlottenburg Palace in September 1964.

Accompanied only by Moinuddin’s wife Saiyur on tanpura and Raja Chatrapati Singh on pakhawaj (a large double-headed drum), the brothers present stunning performances of two ragas stretching out over 65 minutes, exemplifying what a journalist at the time called the ‘pristine severity’ of their style. Much of each piece is taken up by the alap, the highly improvised exposition section where the notes of the raga are gradually introduced as the singing builds in intensity. As Francesca Cassio points out in her extensive liner notes, both performances are somewhat unorthodox in beginning with the raga scale being sung in its entirety, ascending and descending; this is probably, as she suggests, a strategy to introduce the European audience to the language of the music they are about to hear. From there, both ragas settle into alaps of breathtaking beauty, with the two brothers trading long solo passages that move gradually from extended held notes at the bottom of the scale to animated melodic variations as it ascends in pitch. Within the atmosphere of meditative attention, the range of melodic, rhythmic, and timbral invention is remarkable. Especially on the opening ‘Rāga Miyān kī Todī’, the final moments of the alap find the voices at a peak of intensity, their microtonal ornamentation taking on an ecstatic, warbling quality. Only once the wordless, free-floating alap is over and the composition proper begins to the brothers sing in unison, joined by the pakhawaj for a rhythmic section that in both ragas develops gradually into a propulsive display of melodic invention and metrical nuance. Accompanied by detailed liner notes and striking archival images, Berlin 1964 – Live is a rare document of these masterful exponents of one of the world’s most profound musical traditions. 

Blank Forms, a curatorial platform and non-profit organization dedicated to the presentation and preservation of experimental performance, is proud to announce the arrival of its latest collection of works by Catherine Christer Hennix and Masayuki Takayanagi. Don Cherry (1936-1995), a pioneer of free jazz as the right-hand man of Ornette Coleman, and his wife, Swedish visual artist/designer Moki Cherry (1943-2009), have been attracting attention for their collaborations with Coltrane. Don's music, Moki's art, and the family's life in the Swedish countryside of Tågarp were integrated into one comprehensive entity in the miraculous reissue of Organic Music Theatre. This reissue features the historic premiere of the piece at the 1972 Festival de Chateauvallon in Chateauvallon, southern France, mastered from tapes recorded during a live broadcast on public television. It is a mastered reissue of a tape recorded live on public television. The performance marked the beginning of a communal and "mystical" period that would culminate in soundtracks and other works. Performing in this outdoor amphitheater were such luminaries as Moki Cherry, Christer Bothén, Gérard "Doudou" Gouirand, and Naná Vasconcelos, as well as Swedish friends who accompanied them on their trip to France, and Copenhagen Christiania A dozen or so adults and children participated, including Swedish friends who accompanied me on my trip to France and Det Lilla Circus (The Little Circus), a Danish puppet theater based in Copenhagen Christiania. It was truly a breathtaking sound world!

A raid on the values of oriental jazz master and pioneering ethnomusicologist Lloyd Miller. As we’ve said before on the rare encounters we’ve had with Miller’s work, he’s quite a unique figure within the worlds of jazz, traditional Middle-Eastern folk and musicology. Few in history seem to be so heavily embedded within local music scenes and have been capable of absorbing so much from their surroundings. His original works (almost all self-released) are extremely hard to find and are pretty much out of reach for most. This double LP ‘Orientations’ is really what we’ve been longing for though. With unrestricted access to Dr Miller’s archives, local Utah label FOUNTAINavm have combed through previously unreleased recordings from the early 60’s to the early 00’s, capturing the breadth and scale of this unique artist. The cultural clash between east and west underpins each piece, where Miller’s astonishing dexterity on at least 15 different non-western instruments is infused with European Jazz standards. Like listening back in time, the fragrant humid air of the old orient hangs heavy in the atmosphere, capturing a time of great change in the area where the osmosis of culture between East and West would really take off, not without its problems. But these are recordings we keep coming back to, like the lilting romance of piano piece ‘Shahin’ recorded in early 70’s Tehran, or the hypnotic South Indian inspired Carnatic Clarinet from 1960’s. Miller’s work exists at an interesting historical intersection where jazz, folk, spiritual and documentary aspects of music all overlap. (Mint / New - heavy 2LP gatefold). This double LP album is sourced from Lloyd Miller’s personal archives of masters and personal recordings. Archival, Curation, and Tape Transfers by Adam Michael Terry.

Following on from last year’s acclaimed Vrindavan 1982 by rudra veena master Z.M. Dagar, Black Truffle is thrilled to present a pair of archival releases from the Dagar Brothers, among the most revered 20th century exponents of the ancient North Indian dhrupad tradition. The vocal duo of Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar (sometimes referred to as the ‘senior’ Dagar Brothers to distinguish them from their younger siblings, Zahiruddin and Faiyazuddin Dagar), belonged to the nineteenth generation of a family of musicians in which dhrupad tradition has been kept alive through patrilinear transmission, each generation undergoing a rigorous education of many years’ duration that can include singing up to twelve hours each day. Famed for the meditative purity of their approach to dhrupad, the Dagar Brothers helped to keep the tradition alive in the years after Indian independence in 1947, when the royal courts that had traditionally patronised dhrupad musicians were abolished. Many Western listeners were first introduced to dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers’ tour of Europe in 1964-65 and their LP in UNESCO’s ‘Musical Anthology of the Orient’ collection, both organised by pioneering musicologist and scholar of Indian culture Alain Daniélou. Documents from this tour are especially precious, as Moinuddin Dagar passed away in 1966. Berlin 1964 – The Lost Studio Recording (released alongside BT115, a newly discovered concert recording from the same trip) presents two unheard side-long performances in crystalline fidelity, recorded at the International Institute for Comparative Studies and Documentation in Berlin headed by Alain Daniélou. These stunning recordings were consigned to the archive because, as Peter Pannke explains in his liner notes, which recount his meeting with Danielou many years after these recordings were made, the tape ran out during ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, which terminates abruptly soon after the entry of the pakhawaj. Accompanied only by Moinuddin’s wife Saiyur on tanpura and Raja Chatrapati Singh on pakhawaj (a large double-headed drum), the brothers present stunning performances of the severe, serious midnight ‘Raga Malkauns’, set to a ten beat cycle once the pakhawaj enters, and the complex early evening ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, set to a fourteen beat cycle in its rhythmic section. True to the traditional dhrupad structure, both performances are dominated by the long free-floating alap section, where the notes of the raga are gradually introduced, slowly climbing in pitch and intensity as the two singers trade improvisations that display a stunning range of vocal tones and remarkable subtlety in mictrotonal nuance. The performance of ‘Raga Malkauns’ is divided roughly in half, with the pakhawaj and unison singing entering around thirteen minutes through; Raja Chatrapati Singh’s performance is particularly striking in its endlessly inventive metrical nuance within the overall crescendo and acceleration. On ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, the alap lasts almost twenty minutes, with Singh joining only for a few minutes of sparse pakhawaj hits before the tape cuts off, the absence of the more active concluding section serving only to magnify the mystical calm the Dagar Brothers establish in this setting of a 16th century love poem. Illustrated with a striking full colour concert photograph, Berlin 1964 – The Lost Studio Recording is accompanied by extensive liner notes by Peter Pannke celebrating musicologist Alain Daniélou, whose study, documentation and promotion of dhrupad was so important for spreading awareness of this great musical tradition, ready to be discovered anew in this stunning recording from two of its master exponents.

Overproof levels of fruity, dazzling, early machine funk from South indian film composer Vijaya Anand, plucked out by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop for first time vinyl pressing - a must-check for anyone smitten with Finders Keepers’ Ilaiyaraaja sets, YMO, LG Mair Jr.’s midi-funk, or classic cartoon scores from Hanna-Barbera to Mark Mothersbaugh ‘Asia Classics I - The South Indian Film Music of Vijaya Anand: Dance Raja Dance’ is a very welcome return to the Tamil film music realms previously revealed to the western world thru a number of Finders Keepers comps in recent decades. Where those sets attended to the catalogues of A.R. Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja (and even prompted a Rian Treanor edit down the years), this one was originally issued in 1992 and brings the work of Vijaya Anand into striking focus through 11 tracks of lavish string arrangements synced to devilishly detailed disco drum machine programming and synth edits, all sung in Tamil and Telugu languages. Like the aforementioned FK comps, it spanks our tiny minds with its abundance of colourful melody and club-ready grooves wrapped up in incredibly intricate song-writing that never fails to leave us beaming. In the 30 years since its release on CD, ‘Asia Classics I’ has led to Vijaya collaborating with David Byrne on ‘Happy Suicide’ from the ’95 Hollywood flick ‘Blue in the Face’, and a remix of his work by Deee-Lite’s Super DJ Dmitry - two reference points that personify his music’s broad appeal beyond its original purpose on Kollywood screens. From the no wavey psych-funk of ‘Aatavu Chanda (Dancing is Beautiful)’ thru to the wildly animated carousel of ‘Ba Ennalu (When I Say Come)’ its not hard to hear a playful genius at work, riddling every cut like a game of snakes and ladders with multiple stop/start chops, electro-funk fills and complex big band swing, while never losing sight of the groove and audience’s attentions. We’ve absolutely no doubt that it’s a serious baga fun for lovers of the choicest midi-funk and the busiest J-pop alike.

"The classical musicians have a foot in improv; the jazz players get Indian music."
The Guardian, contemporary album of the month

"A record that transcends generic assumptions of the lazily termed “Eastern style”..."
The Vinyl Factory

"A truly enriching listen."
Songlines, ★★★★★

Off the back of Sarathy Korwar's much lauded Day To Day album comes the live album My East Is Your West - a performance that takes the fusion of Indian classical music with the jazz tradition further than its ever been before. Recorded live at London's Church Of Sound, the album is a homage to the great musicians of the 60s and 70s spiritual jazz movement, covering the likes of Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, and Joe Henderson. Korwar plays alongside the UPAJ Collective, a group of highly-versatile musicians who share Sarathy's passion for jazz and Indian music and who have together managed to rebalance the cross-cultural relationship between 'Western' and 'Eastern' music.


With every record Sarathy releases his music becomes more exploratory and insightful, delving into his personal influences, which also inspire much of the music in the jazz scene that surrounds him. At a time where UK jazz is being heralded for its progression, innovation and far-reaching appeal to people from varying backgrounds, ‘My East Is Your West’ is an essential record that explores cultural and musical diversity in way that will continue to be relevant for years to come.

MD Pallavi & Andi Otto first crossed paths on a theatre stage in India ten years ago. They started collaborating instantly and in 2016 MD Pallavi's mesmerizing vocals for the downtempo raga Bangalore Whispers warmed hearts and ears. Their musical relationship flourished with artistic residencies in Bangalore and Hamburg, their respective hometowns, and a concert tour in Japan. The album presents an interwoven pop-aesthetic vision of the two artists with their contrasting musical backgrounds. It ranges from organically woven folktronica to cut-up disco tracks and acoustic ballads. MD Pallavi is a singer, actress, filmmaker and performer from Bangalore, South-India, where she trained in Hindustani music and poetry since childhood. On Songs for Broken Ships, poems in her native tongue Kannada*, one of India's many languages, are performed over Andi’s alluring production, translating the stories into musical narratives. The poems address topics that are as timeless as the music itself. Social equality is touched upon in Bayalu (written by Bontadevi in the 12th century). Artistic struggles - communicated on An Unwritten Word (Gangadhar Chittala, 1865) - are almost prophetic and the surreal, dreamlike scenario of Clockshop (KS Narasimhaswamy,1958) brings you further inside the sonic journey. Andi Otto is a composer, cellist and DJ based in Hamburg, Germany, He is known for his idiosyncratic and unconventional dance music productions on labels such as Multi Culti, Shika Shika and Pingipung (which he co-runs and curates). For this collaborative experience his dubbed out basslines gently interlock with the 7/4 and 5/4 beats to create a backbone for the instrumentation and expressive vocal timbres of MD Pallavi. His sound design combines graceful acoustic recordings, juxtaposed against modern drum machines, computer generated noise and vintage synthesizers.

Following on from the stunning recording of her 1992 performance at the Berlin Parampara Festival (BT079), Black Truffle is pleased to continue its documentation of the work of Berlin-based Italian singer Amelia Cuni, one of the great contemporary exponents of dhrupad, the oldest surviving style of North Indian classical vocal music. Arriving in a gorgeous gatefold featuring stunning colour photographs of Cuni taken by legendary Australian fashion photographer Robyn Beeche (who resided in India from the early 90s), Mumbai. 04.02.1996 is a document of indescribable beauty and a moving testament to music’s ability to cross national and cultural borders. Beautifully recorded in concert at Vishweshwarayya Hall, Mumbai. 04.02.1996 presents expansive performances of three ragas stretching across four sides and almost one and a half hours of music. Beginning with the serene Raga Lalit, Cuni dwells for over twenty-five minutes on its opening alap movement, accompanied only by tanpura, her limpid yet full-bodied voice moving from graceful exposition in free tempo to increasingly rhythmically active variations, gradually spiralling upward in register. She is then joined by master pakwahaj player Manik Munde for the raga’s dhrupad and dhamar sections, the resonant tone of the drum and his constant invention with the complex 14-beat cycle serving as the perfect accompaniment for Cuni’s ecstatic melodic developments. On the more solemn Raga Bhairav, Cuni’s alap, again stretching out over a whole side, is particularly notable for its powerful held notes and mastery of microtonal movement of pitch. After Munde returns for another rhythmically intricate dhamar movement, the record ends with the buoyancy of the Raga Alhaiya Bilaval, whose mode has, for the Western listener, an unmistakably ‘major’ quality. The rapturous applause that greets the performance is reflected in a remarkable selection of press clippings contemporary with the recording, which demonstrate Cuni’s success with Indian critics.

he unbelievably prolific Haruomi Hosono is one of the major architects of modern Japanese pop music. With his encyclopedic knowledge of music and boundless curiosity for new sounds, Hosono is the auteur of his own idiosyncratic musical world, putting his unmistakable stamp on hundreds of recordings as an artist, session player, songwriter, and producer. Born and raised in central Tokyo, his adolescent obsession with American pop culture informed his early forays into country music, which he would revisit later in his career. Hosono made his professional debut in 1969 as a member of Apryl Fool, whose heavy psychedelia was somewhat at odds with his influences, which leaned towards the rootsy sounds of Moby Grape and Buffalo Springfield. The latter was one of the main inspirations for his next group, Happy End, whose unique blend of West Coast sounds with Japanese lyrics proved to be highly influential over the course of three albums. After the band’s amicable break up in 1973, Hosono began his solo career with Hosono House, an intimate slice of Japanese Americana recorded inside a rented house with recording gear squeezed into its tiny bedroom. Hosono’s solo career would take many twists and turns from this point forward, with forays into exotica, electronic, ambient, and techno, culminating in the massive success of techno pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). Released in September 1978, a mere two months before YMO’s debut, Cochin Moon is a clear precursor to the groundbreaking synth and sequencer-dominated sounds that would come to define the iconic trio. Credited to Hosono and Pop Art legend Tadanori Yokoo (who created the cover art), Cochin Moon is a fictional soundtrack to a journey into unknown worlds, inspired by Hosono and Yokoo’s trip to India. Initially the album was to be a kind of ethnographic musical document, using found sounds and field recordings made by Hosono himself. Instead, after Yokoo introduced Hosono to the sounds of Kraftwerk and krautrock during the trip, Cochin Moon became something much stranger. Created almost entirely on synthesizers and sequencers with the help of future YMO collaborators Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hideki Matsutake, the music on the album is the perfect encapsulation of Hosono’s concept of “sightseeing music,” transporting the listener to an exotic place that may or may not exist. This highly sought-after album sees its first-ever official release outside of Japan. Admired by artists ranging from Van Dyke Parks to Mac DeMarco, Hosono continues to forge ahead as he heads into his fifth decade as a musician. With the re-release of his key albums for the first time outside of Japan, his genius will be discovered by a whole new generation of fans around the world.

At long last, Caribbean saxophonist Joe Harriott's classic collaboration with Calcutta composer and conductor John Mayer is back in print on this Koch CD reissue of the original Atlantic LP from 1967. In England in the 1960s, Harriott was something of a vanguard wonder on the order of Ornette Coleman. And while the comparisons flew fast and furious and Harriott was denigrated as a result, the two men couldn't have been more different. For one thing, Harriott was never afraid to swing. This work, written and directed by Mayer, offered the closest ever collaboration and uniting of musics East and West. Based almost entirely in the five-note raga -- or tonic scale that Indian classical music emanates from -- and Western modalism, the four ragas that make up the suite are a wonder of tonal invention and modal complexity, and a rapprochement to Western harmony. The band Harriott assembled here included his own group -- pianist Pat Smythe, bassist Coleridge Goode, and drummer Allan Ganley -- as well as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, flutist Chris Taylor, Diwan Mothar on sitar, Chandrahas Paiganka on tamboura, and Keshan Sathe on tabla, with Mayer playing violin and Harriott on his alto. Of the four pieces, the "Overture" and "Contrasts" are rooted in blues and swing, though they move from one set of ascending and descending notes to the other, always ending on the tonic, and involve more than the five, six, or seven notes of Indian classical music, while the latter two -- "Raga Megha" and "Raga Gaud-Saranga" -- are out to lunch in the Western musical sensibility and throw all notions of Western harmony out the window. The droning place of the tamboura and the improvising sitar and alto shift the scalar notions around until they reflect one another in interval and mode, creating a rich, mysterious tapestry of sonic inquiry that all but folds the two musics into one another for good. Amazing. ~ Thom Jurek

For their third release San Francisco based Indian duo Baalti bring the heat and delve into what they say is their most personally authentic release to date, disclosing the record reflects the various club sounds they’ve been enjoying and discovering over the past year. The five track EP which they’ve titled ‘Better Together’, stays true to their signature sampling of nostalgic South Asian flavours derived from classic Indian, Pakistani, and Bangaldeshi music but on this occasion fused with a backdrop of breaks and euphoric club music which perfectly aligns with Seb Wildblood’s All My Thoughts imprint to which the EP will be released on. The duo have kept a consistent emotive element to the music throughout the EP combined with the leftfield dance- floor sounds they’ve been vouching for more recently. About the release which will be their biggest yet, Baalti go on to explain: ‘With this record, we wanted to lean into clubbier energy that’s been inspiring, enriching and energizing us. We’re trying to connect where we come from to where we are right now, bringing sounds we grew up with to dance- floors and spaces we’re part of today. It’s our most sincere and complete expression yet, and we’ve tried to capture all of the feelings we had from a year of touring, living with our bffs, being in love, finding amazing communities through music, and getting more connected with each other as a duo.’ – Baalti

Recorded 'live in-studio' in London, July 1970. Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. This is one of those occasions when we ‘labellers of music’ get stuck in our own glue. Consider the complication: A group called Indo Jazz Fusions containing Indian and British musicians, an American-born guest, and the result, a uniquely beautiful music which is patently not quite Indian, not quite jazz, not quite contemporary-American. I think the most accurate thing you can say is that it can only be played the way it is by men in contact with the jazz tradition. The group is led, and all the compositions save one were written, by John Mayer. Born in Calcutta, trained first in Indian music, then in classical European music, he came to England about twenty years ago to pursue an orchestral career as a violinist. More recently he has devoted his time entirely to composition and to his Indo Jazz Fusions unit, an idea dating from four or five years ago. As a group it’s been through a number of changes so that now it’s a very fiery, jazzy unit indeed, which doesn’t mean that it’s no longer Indian, as can be heard in the first piece - Raga Malika, based on the rules of the classical Indian raga, a set scale of notes - a kit of parts almost - from which all the resulting solos are built. The rhythm in that case, twelve beats. Not to a bar so much as twelve beats in a recurring cycle. In Serenade you’ll notice the pastoral nature of the sound of Larry Adler’s harmonica against Stan Sulzmann’s flute. In John Mayer’s composition Romance, from which guitar, sitar and tabla are absent, it reaches a degree of intensity seldom heard outside the music of Vaughan Williams, and the piece has one of the most sinuous, unpredictable melodies I’ve ever heard. Larry Adler is the first man as far as I know to have made the harmonica a concert instrument, a feat he achieved in the 1930s, and it’s from the late Thirties that George Gershwin’s Summertime comes. It’s the first time that John Mayer has ever arranged a standard number for this group, and the results are very beautiful indeed. Sarabande by John Mayer is a little more Indian in flavour, though it has a familiar title. In this, John Mayer himself plays violin. The final piece is a return to the raga form, in this case built on a rhythm of eighteen beats. Among the things you’ll hear is a kind of duetting between Jim Moyes on guitar and Clem Alford on sitar. A technique known as the Raga Mehga. I think that Britain is the only place where so many elements could be brought together so successfully. Peter Clayton - July 1970

There it is...!!! This is one of the best of the year, it's amazing, really. Six tracks and 48 minutes of superb ambient synthesizer raga! New York-based Arushi Jain is an Indian-born, US-based composer, modular synthesizer player, vocalist, technician, and engineer. Focusing on reinterpreting his roots in Indian classical music through the lens of electronic music, she continues in the spirit of electronic music legends such as Suzanne Ciani and Terry Riley, while personally exploring her own musical heritage and upbringing, reconstructing ancient sounds within a contemporary framework. This album is intended to be listened to during the sunset hours, thereby inviting the listener into the depths of their own being. This album is similar to the ethereal and devotional appeal of labelmate Ana Roxanne, but is more cosmic and cosmic in nature. It's heavenly meditation music. As you would expect from Leaving, they bring in great people after such strong names as Sam Gendel and Green-House. I can't take my eyes off the vibrant LA scene any longer. Her music is also a celebration of Indian culture, and for this occasion, she is asking for donations on her bandcamp release page. Limited to 300 copies.

 Zia Mohiuddin Dagar : rudra veena
Manik Munde : pakhawaj
Gayathri Rajapur & Annie Penta : tanpuras

Recorded by unknown at the University of Washington, HUB Auditorium, Seattle, Washington 15 March 1986 ; concert co-sponsored by the UW Ethnomusicology Division and Ragamala.
Original digitally processed audio recording made with Panasonic PV-9000 VCR, Sony PCM-F1, PZM mics. Mastered & Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering 1117 & 0318.

Liner notes by Renaud Brizard, edited by Ian Christe.
Front and back cover photos by Niranjan B. Benegal, Seattle Center Folklife Festival 1979. Elizabeth Reeke & Annie Penta on tanpuras.
Inner gatefold photography by Niranjan B. Benegal & Ira Landgarten.

Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.

Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical music said to "show the raga in its clearest and purest form". It's pacing concentrates heavily on the slow, contemplative alap section and works with specific microtonal gestures and deep characteristics of resonance ... in short I was hooked on this new (to me) and ancient form of music from the first listen, and feel that a more or less continual listening & reviewing of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's recordings in the years that followed have influenced my own approach to music quite heavily (if, albeit, indirectly).

In early 2015 I was able to make contact with Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's son Bahauddin and some of his American students/disciples, primarily Jeff Lewis. Over time we developed a friendly and educational exchange, access a massive archive of recordings and developed these two paired titles for my label. It's been a long path to arrive at actually releasing them but also probably in many ways one of the most significant releases I've worked on. And I'm proud to be able to reveal these to date unreleased archival recordings of one of the masters of dhrupad, Z. M. Dagar, to the public for the first time.

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was the nineteenth generation in a family tradition known as Dagar gharana, a rich lineage which continued and performed the musical form of dhrupad (Bahauddin Dagar continues the lineage as a master rudra veena dhrupad player of note today). Initially, dhrupad was a rigorous, austere, devotional genre that was sung in Hindu temples. But between the 16th and the 18th centuries, it became the preeminent genre in royal courts in North and Central India, and the Dagar gharana developed and continued publicly following the eventual loss of court patronage for dhrupad in the 19th century. The French ethnomusicologist Renaud Brizard covers the story of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's life and teaching (a long story also in Seattle, my hometown!), the Dagar family and gharana, the rudra veena and more topics in an extensive set of liner notes in this release.

Raga Yaman was recorded at a public concert in Seattle at the HUB Ballroom at the University of Washington in March 1986 (the week after the accompanying release SOMA028 Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani was recorded) at the end of his last tour of the United States. Yaman was a special raga for Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, one of his signature raags. For centuries, Yaman has been considered as one of the most fundamental ragas in Hindustani music and is one of the first ragas which is taught to students. A deep knowledge of Yaman gives a key for understanding many other ragas. It's filled with tranquility, contemplation, pathos and spiritual yearning. .

-Stephen O'Malley, March 2018, Paris, France

Rudra is Lord Shiva and an absolute truth. Music for meditation ... The amazing sound that fascinates Stephen O'Malley is here! "Dhrupad" is a type of North Indian classical music that is considered to be the oldest form of classical music and has a form found in the tradition of South Indian carnatic music, and is said to show raga in its clearest and purest form. Unknown masterpiece!

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar (1929 – 1990), an Indian classical master famous for playing Rudra Veena, also known as ZM Dagar, and an American who was fascinated by Dhrupad music and studied Indian classical music for 30 years. An unreleased live recording by two Dhrupad classical singer and tabla player Annie Penta has been released from the prestigious Ideologic Organ under Editions Mego in a way miraculous!

Recorded a concert at the homes of Shantha and Niranjan B. Benegal in Seattle, Washington in 1986. It was Rudra Veena by Zia Mohiuddin Dagar that they introduced to Stephen after a 10-year-old London concert with Æthenor members Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg. It is said that it was a recording of. The heaven of spiritual music. Knowing "ask the old and know the new" is exactly the encounter with this music. The intimate and elegant sound of the resonance of Rudra Veena and Tampura, which is also known as an extreme meditation state, is a masterpiece of dope that just sinks into the depths of the spiritual world. This is a transcendental recommendation as the best, best and best record of 2018 along with Ragnar Johnson the other day! Mastering & cutting is done at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker, a purveyor to our label. Includes liner notes by Renaud Brizard and Ian Christe.

Barely disco and hardly jazz, Rupa Biswas' music the halfway point between Bollywood and Balearic. Tracked in 1982 at Calgary’s Living Room Studios with a crack team of Indian and Canadian studio rats alike, both “Moja Bhari Moja” and “East West Shuffle” are the perfect fusion sarod and synthesizer. Remastered from original analogue source material and with permission and blessing of the producers and performers.

“Weaves impressions of ancient stories with modern sounds… Every detail and twist passed down through the generations [with] a deep spiritual resonance” Pitchfork “Like experiencing the glacial lassitude of a one-hour raga compressed into four-minute movements....A self-assured and challenging collection” The Guardian Hailing from Baltimore, Punjabi-American sitar player, songwriter and ambient musician Ami Dang unites the disparate worlds of Indian classical music and dreamy synth-infused song composition on beguiling new album The Living World’s Demands. Envisioned as a lament to the challenges to which humanity has subjected the world and itself, Ami Dang’s newest album builds on the floating, blissful ambience of 2019’s Parted Plains and the vocal-led, pop structures of 2020 collaborative release Galdre Visions (a bona fide ambient supergroup also featuring Green-House and Nailah Hunter). The Living World’s Demands is an immensely evocative and expressive collection, just as complex, nuanced and precious as the living world in its title. Within are themes of trauma, survival, resistance, desperation and righteous vitriol, responding to greed, fear and injustice, yet the music is often euphoric, disarming and breathtakingly beautiful. Lilting sitar lines sparkle about an unpredictably broad spectrum of synthesis; Indian classical percussion rattles and snakes through its drum programming. And atop, Ami’s astonishing singing voice - with lyrics of English and Punjabi - deftly weaves her two worlds together with silken threads of both contemporary and traditional textures. Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang has studied North Indian classical music (voice and sitar) in both New Delhi and Maryland, and she also holds a degree in music technology & composition from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. Following in the footsteps of artists like Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass, she seeks to advance the sound of contemporary experimental, pop, and electronic music with the sounds of South Asia—through vocals and sitar, ragas, and sampling. She has collaborated with Animal Collective, William Cashion (of Future Islands), James Acaster, Thor Harris—to name a few. She has performed onstage with Beach House, black midi, Grimes, Lower Dens, Florist and more. The Living World’s Demands is a co-release between Phantom Limb and LA’s Leaving Records.

Rudra is Shiva, the Absolute Truth. It is truly music for meditation. Heir to one of the most important musical lineages in the North Indian classical=Hindustani musical tradition, the great man who contributed to the revival of Rudra Veena as a solo concert instrument, more widely known by its release than the Ideologic Organ sponsored by Stephen O'Malley His latest studio recording, made on January 6, 2020 at Studio Swarkul in Mumbai, India, is the latest in a long line of works by Mohi Bahauddin Dagar, the son of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, who has unearthed much of the Italian avant-garde music of recent years. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Maurice Mogard.

Disques Ocora, a French label dedicated to capturing and publishing the sounds of folkloric culture from around the world, is held in the highest possible regard in the realms of professional and amateur ethnomusicology. Instigated in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of musique concrète, Disques Ocora's sterling reputation is largely built on composer and musicologist Charles Duvelle's pioneering field recordings, as well as his now-iconic photographs and graphic design. Charles Duvelle's work is indisputably one of the most important contributions to the human understanding of the rich biodiversity of our planet's music and language. In 1977, his field recordings from Benin were selected by Carl Sagan for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records, which were carried into outer space by the Voyager spacecraft to stand as an example of humanity's highest musical expressions for the universe's unknown listeners. Sublime Frequencies' most ambitious project to date, this 296-page fine-art photography book comprises an exhaustive collection of Charles Duvelle's field photography from 1959 to 1978 (188 black-and-white and 58 color photographs), demonstrating that this master musicologist had an equally unerring eye for photography; Includes a photo index listing the details of each photograph. It also contains an exhaustive interview with Charles Duvelle by Hisham Mayet, detailing the history of the label and offering Duvelle's unique insights into the discipline of field recording (French and English facing text). The package includes two full-length CDs of archival recordings (some of which have never been published) selected, compiled, and fully annotated by Duvelle himself. Most of the tracks on CD one (Africa) are complete versions of truncated tracks from OOP Ocora LPs. CD two, which includes performances by Sohan Lal, Kheo Oudon, and Madurai Ramaswami Gautam, is focused on material from Asia (music from India and Laos), with two long tracks that have never been released (a third track is a complete unedited version). The material focuses on the five regions surveyed during his time with Ocora: West Africa, Central Africa, Indian Ocean, Pacific Islands, and SouthEast Asia. It includes "Disques Ocora / Charles Duvelle Discography, 1959-1974", a complete overview illustrated with 94 full-color album thumbnails, "The Prophet Collection, 1999-2004" a discography of Duvelle's post-Ocora label illustrated with 41 full-color album thumbnails, "Eastern Music in Black Africa", a 17-page report prepared by Charles Duvelle at the request of UNESCO (February 1970), and a review of the Ocora catalogues (1964-1973). In a tribute to Disques Ocora's exquisite design sensibility, the book is printed on 170 gsm Lumisilk matte art paper and bound in grey buckram with gold foil stamping on the cover and spine. The front cover includes a tipped-on glossy photograph by Charles Duvelle. Hardcover book; 10"x10"; 296 pages; 4.5 lbs. Produced and edited by Hisham Mayet.