Customer Reviews

Raga Darbari Kanada / Suha Kanada / Sindhu Bhairavi

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Recently I reviewed a seemingly forgotten/little-known gem by a beautiful Warrior Poet, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan. Seeing it have no reviews, and then a couple days ago seeing this album have no reviews, I decided to fix that. Both items are similar in that they move me on an incredible level, yet have not garnered much attention here.

Bimal Mukherjee is the greatest sitarist you've never heard. He is a Tone God. This Bhairavi is some of the most beautiful music I own. His name should be up there as one of the giants of the 20th Century. I suspect he is much more well-known and revered in India than he is here in the USA where so many people only know the couple Indian musicians who've been talked about by white rock stars for the past 40 years.

Bimal's alap in Darbari Kanada is a tension-filled masterwork. It is very special. His meends seem to creep in from behind the moment, somehow. He builds his phrases in ways that have me riding his wave and yearning for the resolve.

I hesitate to say more because I don't know what else to say. No words I may string together are going to do this album justice. This cd needs just 1 review by someone who remains fascinated, blown away by it and deeply respectful of it. In terms of the performances here... the massive weight of the beauty of Bimal's playing, you have to buy this album. You deserve to hear him for yourself. I will only say this, if you don't know the India Archives label, they never really capture the sound of the tabla. It always sounds flatter on their albums than it does in concert or on releases by Moment or other labels. It's just one of the things with which we have to live. It does not have that aquatic bounce... that full, warm roundness.

Still, anyone with any interest in Hindustani music should buy this. Bimal is one of my favorite sitarists of all time, and it's a shame there aren't more albums available. Many times I've felt blessed just to know this album. At 76 minutes in length (40 mins of Darbari Kanada, 16 of Suha Kanada and 20 of Bhairavi), there's plenty to love.

I feel total resonance to the perception of the previous reviewer. And there is indeed no thing more to be said.
The only thing interesting/fascinating happening to me, and maybe worth mentioning, is that the perfection of this performance feels so encompassingly complete ... that to my astonishment I realized first after a good number of times of listening, that the play unraveling itself is held in the form of THREE ragas ... and not, as I all the time thought/heard ... in One.
This is of course just my perception ... and may not necessarily be the one testifying a lot of expertise.
But nevertheless for me the discovery of the 3-as-One was a very sweet and somehow ... reassuring one ... that ultimately ... when it really really really feels 'good' ... every thing as every raga ... is only and always ... just ... ONE.