|
The Rain
Ghazal

|
HOT PICK
Scientists researching telepathy would find living proof
in this fourth installment of the cross-cultural collaboration
between Persian and Indian traditional-music masters.
The Rain is a breathtaking improvisational journey,
and not in the least because Kayhan Kalhor and Shujaat
Hussain Khan -- on kemancheh and sitar, respectively
-- come to the music from two different, highly regimented
traditions. Recorded live for Swiss radio, The Rain
is aptly titled, as each gossamer strain of strings
shimmers in a mist of spontaneous music-making. Some
passages fall steadily, with the quiet plink and pitter-pat
of tablaist Sandeep Das underscoring the melancholic
sawing of Kalhor's fiddle.
A sunshower of notes from
Khan opens the window; a low roll of tabla thunders;
and the three are off on a storm of lightning runs crackling
up and down the fretboards of their ancient instruments.
Earlier meetings of this duo were studies in silence
and grace, but Ghazal's subsequent touring and recordings
allow for all kinds of new expressions. The ease with
which the virtuoso from Tehran and his partner settle
into an imagined Central Asian cutting contest may remind
listeners of a jazz session, and The Rain boasts a light,
buoyant swing that followers of this pathbreaking duo
will find revelatory. Mark Schwartz
 |