Nadaka Living Colours / Celebration

It's a revelation to return to nadaka's music after a year of being consigned to the bottom of the pile. You see, on first hearing all i heard was a plastic copy of real indofusion. Oh how wrong i was and apologies for my mistake.

Instead what we have here is a true devotee of the raga, assisted brilliantly by a wealth of indian musicians, although what results is something

comfortably familiar about nadaka's fusion of east and west. It's rickhy ray. it's remember shakti. It's coryell and hariprasad's music without boundaries. It's zakir hussain's making music. It's all these things plus nadaka's own sense of harmony and form. Just one example is at the top of living colours when the jingle-jangle of pinball wizard gives way to a thrusty fully orchestrated

worldly groove caressed by deep cello-like sweeps from ganesh's violin,

propelled by drum master shivamani's heavy backbeat, (far more fitting here than during his cameo on saturday night in bombay - see review). Indeed,

there is something unique about the classical interplay of instruments and the modern melody lines.

Living colours and celebration are 2 quite different albums; Celebration is natural elements to Living Colours' a handful of beauty, both more ponderous than remember shakti but also more dynamic than the symphonically staid chants of India.