Breathing Under Water [Import]

Anoushka Shankar, Karsh Kale | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 28, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Manhattan Records
• ASIN: B000RPCEV6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,996 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #82 in Music > World Music > India & Pakistan > General

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Like her father before her, Anoushka Shankar is a musical eclectic experimenting with forms far beyond those of Indian classical music. Going even further than on her previous disc, Rise, Shankar, along with co-producer Karsh Kale, explores the meeting of electronica and India. "Burn" starts out as a romantic Bollywood theme before turning into a sultry soul tune with electronica beats, squiggly analog synths, and an impassioned vocal by Noah Lembersky. Shankar's sitar stutter glitches over a tabla-draped electronica rhythm on "Slither," courtesy of the Midival Punditz' Gaurav Raina. Guest singers appear on several tracks, including the ubiquitous Sting, who contributes his overly earnest voice to a power ballad called "Sea Dreamer." Shankar's sitar occasionally becomes a sidelight on her own album, leaping out for rock guitar-like breaks. She doesn't so much duet with Sting as accompany him. Her song for half-sister Norah Jones, on the other hand, integrates the singer's voice into a textural track of snaky sitar, as Jones mixes ethereal chorales and impassioned pleas. Much of Breathing Under Water recalls Bombay Dub Orchestra and their mixture of Bollywood strings, Indian musicians, and electronic grooves and textures. Both Kale and Shankar have writing credits on all but one composition, with their computer-concocted tracks often bridged by rhapsodic strings arranged by Bollywood composer Salim Merchant. His co-composition, "Little Glass Folk," brings an uncharacteristic Western classicism to the album, while the Anoushka and Ravi Shankar-composed work, "Oceanic," is the only piece aspiring to Indian classicism. Breathing Under Water is an ambitious album, although it has elements of pastiche, designed to expose Anoushka Shankar to a wider audience. --John Diliberto

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Product Description

Breathing under Water is the soundtrack of a journey created by two of the most visionary talents pioneering the hip and fertile overlap of today's world music scene. Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale expanded beyond cultural and traditional borders of music on their new collaboration. With the help of featured guests Ravi Shankar, Sting, Norah Jones, Midival Punditz, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and others, the duo has succeeded in blending Indian classical, electronica, dance, and folk into a genre hopping triumph.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An exciting world sonic travelogue. April 22, 2008

By power

Format:Audio CD

Anoushka is Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar's daughter.
After "Rise", which was released two years ago, got her a Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary World Music category she has been experimenting with forms far beyond those of Indian classical music to reach a wider audience.
Anoushka's album, made in collaboration with musician Karsh Kale, blends Indian classical, electronica and folk.
London-born and New York-raised, Kale balances his Indian heritage with rock 'n' roll, hip-hop and atmospheric pop.
"I am pushing the envelope on a personal level and trying to see how far I can go", Anoushka said. "It means so much to me to explore the Indian classical music my father taught me, yet I am so deeply excited to be discovering my own creative voice".
Imagine living in a world where psychedelic raves follow classical recitals and rock and roll dives become Bollywood hangouts. A world where one finds West Coast yogis immersed in Eastern culture and the New York underground drawing inspiration from the Mumbai club scene, where globalization is an internal state-of-being and borders were made to be crossed.
This is the world Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale live in and journey through.
"Breathing Under Water" is the soundtrack of this journey as created by two of the most visionary talents pioneering the hip and fertile overlap of today's world music scene.
The album is carefully constructed and composed, boasting some of the finest guest artists on the order of Ravi Shankar - who created the nucleus of two climatic pieces for the album (Oceanic Parts 1 & 2) plus Sting, Anoushka's sister Norah Jones, MIDIval PunditZ, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Noah Lembersky , Shankar Mahadevan and Sunidhi Chauhan.
"Breathing Under Water" plays like a modern gypsy travelogue through the alluring world of Shankar and Kale.
Karsh Kale, 32-year old, a tabla drummer who is also an electronica producer and programmer, was raised in America by Indian parents, and proved his instrumental talent early - as a founding member of the all-star super group Tabla Beat Science and later as producer and composer of some of the finest global electronica of the past decade.
His meeting amd working with Anoushka Shankar - the 25-year old star sitarist and composer would seems almost inevitable, given their markedly parallel paths.
Saying that "Breathing Under Water" is a career breakthrough for both Shankar and Kale is an understatement.
For both, it proved creatively catalytic and stands as a measure of their growth as musicians, as they broke ground beyond the roles each is known for: Shankar expanding her talents as an electronic producer, keyboard/pianist, composer and lyricist, and Kale as a composer and singer, while playing guitars, tabla, drums, keyboards and bass.
For both the common thread within this album remained the Indian Classical repertoire.
In the same way rock and roll artists used blues music and hip hop artists use jazz and funk as their muse to create new forms, Kale and Shankar both keep Indian music at the centre of all that they create, yet allow the music to expand beyond cultural and traditional borders to reach a panoramic view of their world.
"Breathing Under Water" features numerous special guests, some of them actually rather famous.
Sitar maestro and living legend Ravi Shankar, 85, plays on two tracks.
The pleasant "Sea Dreamer", features vocals and acoustic guitar from Sting, more evocative singing comes from Sunidhi Chauhan on the haunting "Ghost Story".
"Easy", featuring a vocal Norah Jones, is surely the album's flat-out prettiest track, a delicate, restrained piece that sees the two sisters trying to out-do each other on the blissful melodies.
Overall, the album is a genuine meld of music that cohesively blends different sounds and represents the best kind of change that can be brought about through tasteful fusion and well crafted songwriting.
"Breathing Under Water is nothing less than delightfully -- and sometimes powerfully -- unique". Thom Jurek-Allmusic
My highlights : "Easy", "Ghost Story", "Oceanic, Part.1" and "Little Glass Folk".

Rise
Chants Of India: Ravi Shankar; George Harrison
The Essential Ravi Shankar
33 1/3
Broken English
Not Too Late

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Music For The Soul January 3, 2008

By John Faust

Format:Audio CD

I love Méhdi, Enigma, Karsh Kale etc. and this is a beautiful and rare production that I also enjoy just as much. Like most who stumbled on this beautiful CD, I bought the CD because the CD shop selling it happened to be playing it - and I was immediately captivated and deeply touched by it. Glad I picked it up and highly recommend it.

Also Recommended: Méhdi ~ Paradise...A True Gem! Full Samples at Soothing Music dot com ...Just Go Listen! Instrumental Paradise Volume 8

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Life Aquatic with Anoushka Shankar&Karsh Kale February 14, 2008

By Amaranth

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Breathing Under Water" is a marvelous marine musical journey. It's perfect to let the music wash over you. Karsh Kale,looking a lot dapper since his "Realize" days,has gone more classical while Anoushka Shankar,Ravi's famous daughter,leaps into the sea of techno. "Breathing Under Water" was 2007's OTHER duet album,in the shadow of the sandy Robert Plant/Alison Krauss juggernaut.

"Breathing Under Water" has a great range of styles. The opening,"Burn" is cinematic (it does have the Bombay Cinema Orchestra) and has the androgynous vocals of Noah Lembersky. "Slither" is a powerful instrumental-Kale bringing the rhythm with his tablas while Shankar strums away on her sitar. The title track is hypnotic. Sting's "Sea Dreamer" is relaxing. "Ghost Story" is appropriately eerie. "PD7" is a throbbing dancefloor track. The album is also a family affair. Anoushka&her half-sister Norah Jones complement each other in "Easy." Anoushka&her father Ravi are powerfully serene in "Oceanic,Parts 1&2." There are some interesting pieces-"Little Glass Folk" sounds like an Indian take on Western classical music,while "Perfect Rain" is Oriental placidity.

"Breathing Under Water" harmoniously weds Karsh Kale's techno/Asian Massive beats with Anoushka Shankar's serene classical sitar-playing. Their interchange is musically delightful,at once peaceful&erotic,spiritual&sensual. It is like the Hindu belief in the mystical union of Shakti (feminine energy) with Shiva (masculine energy) The album is the musical echo of the love play between them. "Breathing Under Water" is perfect music to have wash over you on Valentine's Day. It's waterdance for the soul,a musical Kama Sutra.