Nitin Sawhney, Beyond Skin Review

Overall Rating

Nitin Sawhney, Beyond Skin is indeed a wolf in sheep's clothing. At face value we have an album of popular music including many contemporary styles such as spoken rap (cf Ronny Size Reprazent), R&B ballads, bassy production, sweeping string sections and dense strong structures. But it is also an important album that fuses both musics and cultures, recognised as such by the Mercury Music Awards on its release in 1999.

Its importance is largely the role it has to play within the Anglo Indian community; some English Indians / British Asians have made it known that they struggle with their identity, often alienating the previous generations who made the brave move to the UK but who also want to maintain their Asian culture. The new generation now want to respect their forefathers but also embrace western culture. The conflict has been popularised brilliantly through radio and TV programs like Sawhney and Sanjeev Bhaskar's "Goodness Gracious Me" which attacks stereotypes in sketches like 'Peter Sellers is Dead' (to signify the end of white actors "blacking up") and "Going for an English" which satirises lager yobbishness when some Bombay youths go to a Berni Inn, insult the waiter and dare one another to order the blandest dish on the menu - it's on the way to becoming as famous as the parrot sketch. The album addresses issues at both homes, India and the UK.

Sawhney's strengths lie in his multi-instrumentalism and appreciation of modern technological music. Traditional instruments, e.g., sarangi and tabla, are set in a contemporary context with lullaby basslines, fire cracker hip-hop beats, sweetly-sensuous Dido-breathy vocals and extensive post-production. Jazzy melodies, Carnatic structures, konokol, intense political sentiment, expert craftsmanship and beautiful execution make this a most attractive album for any Indofusion aficionado. 1) Broken Skin
2) Letting Go
3) Homelands
4) Pilgrim
5) Tides
6) Nadia
7) The Immigrant
8) Serpents
9) Anthem Without Nation
10) Nostalgia
11) The Conference
12) Beyond Skin