Bonobo… Beyond the borders of an emotional Soul-Jam

Simon Green Bonobo

Simon Green, aka Bonobo, is an artist very much at the peak of his significant powers. His 2010 album Black Sands was the high watermark of his career to date; a masterful record, marrying Green's inimitable melodic genius to cutting edge electronics, bass and drums. Black Sands went on to sell over 150,000 copies worldwide, and since its release, Bonobo has toured the world with his live band, wowing audiences of thousands at a time with the hypnotic, extended live versions of the album's tracks. The beauty of Bonobo’s material lies in its ability to translate emotion into a music score, regardless of instrument, tempo, lyrics, or influencing genre. He is an artist and producer with his sights set on much higher prices than to rule any dusty subgenre of dance music.  Green understands composition and arrangement of live instruments (most of them also played by him) as well as his complete mastery of the tricks and techniques of the digital age has made him a house hold name in the industry.

All this comes as the result of over ten years hard work, and five albums that have honed Green's skills. A born musician, Green - like many artists - expresses himself most articulately via his music. The result is that his work is always keenly felt, and always feels imperative. There are no wasted moments, and always myriad great ones. It's tempting to relate Green's yearning, emotive aesthetic to his upbringing in rural Hampshire. His move to Brighton is also an influence; his skill at drum programming perhaps harking back to his days DJing and producing in the small, musically fertile town. Under the initial guidance of Tru Thoughts' Rob Luis and at nights such as Phonic:hoop, Bonobo found an early education in music.

His first album - 2000's Animal Magic - was released via Tru Thoughts before being picked up by Ninja Tune. It announced him as a serious talent; able to bring a true musician's edge to electronic music, with all the freedom that skill allowed. His subsequent albums for Ninja, Dial M for Monkey and Days to Come, developed his sensibility, won him fans across the globe, and saw him develop his live show into a mesmeric re-working of his records. “Days To Come,” has become one of Ninja Tune’s biggest artists worldwide, with over fifteen million plays on Last.FM and a series of sell out tours with his live band which have moved from venues such as the Luminaire to the Kentish Town Forum and the Roundhouse. This combination of superb live shows and studio wizardry means that he is now perfectly placed to push on into a yet bigger league. With “Black Sands,” Bonobo has made the progressive record to achieve it. He also worked hard as a DJ, a part of Green's arsenal that perhaps truly came into its own at the same time as Black Sands was generally welcomed as his best album to date. 2012 saw Green take the up-tempo, club re-edits of Black Sands from a seminal Boiler Room performance in London to dance floors across the world, and unveil a new light show that further enhanced the impact of these stunning songs. A remix album was released featuring reworking’s by fans and peers such as Machinedrum, Floating Points, Mark Pritchard, Lapalux and FaltyDL.

Simon Green, aka Bonobo

Later the same year, he finally settled down in his New York studio to write his fifth studio album. Now, in 2013, he stands ready to take things up yet another notch. The North Borders is another long stride forward - both a natural evolution and a continuation of the electronic palette of Black Sands. Thematic, resonant, addictive and perfectly formed, it's a thrillingly coherent statement piece. With vocal features from no less than Erykah Badu, as well as Grey Reverend (Cinematic Orchestra) and Cornelia (Portico Quartet) it's another finely balanced body of work, leaving room for the beautiful, rich productions themselves to breathe and shine. Bonobo has a long history of unearthing new talent (Andreya Triana, Bjaika) and The North Borders sees him do so once again. The startling vocals of new collaborator Szjerdene are sprinkled across The North Borders, and Green has yet again found the perfect voice to enhance where he's at. With a huge run of international tour dates set to commence shortly after the album's Spring release date, plus a host of weighty press and radio campaigns and a bleeding edge online campaign, 2013 looks set to be Simon Green's year, which is very good news for the rest of us, too.

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Jonas Hellborg :The Wild Improviser

Jonas Hellborg

Jonas Hellborg was born 1958 in Gothenburg, Sweden. He taught himself to play the bass at age 12. Influenced by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, cream, and deep purple, Hellborg played mainly blues and heavy rock. In 1972 he heard a record that changed his perception of music. This album, the inner mounting flame, by the Mahavishnu Orchestra (featuring English guitarist John McLaughlin) would not only influence his music, but his career as well. Formal studies in jazz and classical music started at the age of sixteen. At this time he became involved with a free form group. He listened to albert Ayler, John Coltrane. He studied Miles Davis' development from the early part of his career through the beginning of the seventies when Davis produced, in a silent way, and bitches brew.

Dissatisfied with the various rock groups he had been touring with, Hellborg turned to more challenging music and solo concerts. In 1981, he was invited to play at the Monteux jazz festival. Michael brecker was impressed by hellborg's playing there and introduced him to many of the jazz greats including his long-time idol John McLaughlin. Hellborg sent him some tapes of his music. In 1982 hellborg created his own record label, day eight, in order to allow him and others to record with full artistic freedom. The first record was hellborg's first solo bass release, "the bassic thing". In May 1983, hellborg joined avant-garde pianist Michael j. Smith and drummer Michael shrieve (of Santana fame) to record day eight's second release, "all our steps". Shortly after this McLaughlin invited hellborg to join the reforming Mahavishnu Orchestra. The first performance hellborg did with McLaughlin was a television show in Paris where they played in trio with Billy Cobham on drums. Early 1984 saw the addition of saxman bill evans and keyboardist Mitch forman and the group released the self-titled album "Mahavishnu". At the same time hellborg released his second solo bass album "elegant punk". Before the first Mahavishnu tour ex - Pat metheny group drummer Danny gottlieb replaced Billy cobham, the group completed two world tours.

 In 1985 Hellborg and McLaughlin started playing duet concerts. In an effort to explore a different musical mood, the two created an intimate chamber music kind of jazz/funk that was almost classical in its texture. Additionally, that same year, hellborg recorded "axis" with parliament/funkadelic keyboardist Bernie worrell, singer Bernard fowler and drummer Anton fier. 1986 saw the release of the second Mahavishnu album, "adventures in radioland" (recorded in milan, italy) and another world tour. In 1987, mclaughlin-hellborg duo toured throughout japan, the US and Europe. In 1988 McLaughlin and hellborg was joined by Indian percussionist Trilok gurtu for a tour of the US. After this tour hellborg left McLaughlin, but he recorded a record called "adfa" with Trilok gurtu and Ulf wakenius (guitar).  After this he moved to New York and formed another trio with Turkish keyboardist Ayden esen and drummer Kenwood dennard. This first incarnation of the Jonas hellborg group toured Europe doing concerts and tv shows but did no recording. The second version was formed by another bass player named Anders nord and electronic drummer Jaime salazar. The trio called "Jonas hellborg group" recorded and toured in 1990. The third version was formed with keyboard player Jens Johansson and drummer Anders johansson both from Yngwie malmsteens rising force. The three Swedish musicians recorded the cd called "e" which is a masterpiece of fusion and heavy-rock music. In 1990 Jens joined dio for a record and a tour.

Their first Indian-flavored disc, 1999’s Zenhouse, was a beautiful, largely serene effort that offered their personal take on the raga form. “My interest in Indian music goes back to my teenage years of being a hippie,” explains Hellborg. “In the late '60s and early '70s, everyone was into Indian music such as the Beatles, Ravi Shankar and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. When I started playing seriously, I was into John McLaughlin. Then I started playing with him and meeting all these great Indian people. So, it's been an ongoing thing for me during my whole career. The first thing that’s obvious for a Westerner is the rhythmic complexity of the music. That was my initial attraction and fascination—the method, teaching, composing and understanding of rhythms. What also really struck me was the melodic aspect of the music, as well as the intricacies, ornamentation and variations.”

Jonas Hellborg

Hellborg’s next effort, 2000’s Good People in Times of Evil, represented a significant leap forward in his approach towards Indian music. Along with Lane, the record featured celebrated Indian percussion master V. Selvaganesh, the son of Vikku Vinayakram, an original member of Shakti. The results were stunning. The album’s singularly inventive and exhilarating musical dialogues cemented Hellborg’s reputation as one of modern music’s most original and intriguing voices.It also laid the groundwork for the equally impressive follow-up Icon, released in 2003. For that project, Hellborg also invited Selvaganesh’s brothers, vocalist V. Umamahesh and percussionist V. Umashankar, to take part. The quintet showcased an even more seamless integration between Western and Indian influences. With its dazzling group interplay, moments of spontaneous drama and graceful, ethereal passages, Icon represents the best of what’s possible within Indian fusion.In the new century Hellborg has in addition to his ongoing work with V. Selvaganesh (latest release Kali’s Son with Sitar maestro Niladri Kumar) started a new Venture with Swedish guitar phenomenon Mattias “IA” Eklundh. Their musical vehicle is the group “Art Metal” juxtaposing Indian Music, “Jazz” with different newer forms of Metal.

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan : Vocal Tone Phrases in Unearthly Ornamentation

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born on October 13, 1948 in the city of Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was the fifth child and first son of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, a distinguished and legendary musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and Qawwal. Nusrat's family, which included his four older sisters and his younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan grew in central Lyallpur, in a small flat which was rented from a local businessman. Qawwali is a performance art that has traditionally been passed down within families. Nusrat's family has an unbroken tradition of performing Qawwali for approximately 600 years. Nusrat's father was initially reluctant to allow him to enter the family business, instead hoping his son would become a doctor or an engineer, having felt Qawwals had a low social status. However, Nusrat's enthusiasm for Qawwali eventually persuaded his father to train him in the art. Nusrat began by learning to play tabla alongside his father before progressing to learn Raag Vidya and Bolbandish. He then went on to learn to sing within the classical framework of khayal in the Qawwal Bachchon Ka Gharana and was taught dhrupad from the Dagar family. Khan's training with his father was cut short when his father died in 1964, leaving Nusrat's paternal uncles, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, to complete his training.

His first concert was at a traditional graveside ceremony for his father, known as chehlum, which took place forty days after his father's death. In 1971, after the death of Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan, Nusrat became the official leader of the family Qawwali party and the party became known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. Nusrat assumed leadership of the party, despite the fact that Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan, who was Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan's son, was considerably older than him. Nusrat's first public performance as the leader of the Qawwali party was at a studio recording broadcast as part of an annual music festival organized by Radio Pakistan, known as Jashn-e-Baharan. He sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally in Persian, Brajbhasha and Hindi. His first major hit in Pakistan was the song Haq Ali Ali, which was performed in a traditional style and with traditional instrumentation. The song featured restrained use of Nusrat's sargam improvisations and attracted a large number of listeners.

Success in the West
Nusrat reached out to Western audiences through his collaborations with Canadian musician, Michael Brook and his work with Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder in 1995 on the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. He went on to gain popularity in the West through his contributions to the soundtracks of The Last Temptation of Christ and Natural Born Killers, together with his friendship with Peter Gabriel. Nusrat was unhappy with the use of his vocals on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, stating that the nature of the film was contrary to the beliefs and the ideals conveyed in his work.Peter Gabriel's Real World label later released five albums of Nusrat's traditional Qawwali, together with some of his experimental work which included the albums Mustt Mustt and Star Rise. Nusrat provided vocals for The Prayer Cycle, which was put together by Jonathan Elias, but died before the vocals could be completed. Alanis Morissette was brought in to sing with his unfinished vocals. He also performed traditional Qawwali before international audiences at several WOMAD world music festivals and the single Dam Mast Qalandar was remixed by electronic trip hop group Massive Attack in 1998.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Later Years
Nusrat contributed songs to, and performed in, several Pakistani films. Shortly before his death, he recorded a song each for two Bollywood films, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (in which he also appeared) and Kachche Dhaage. He also sang the immensely-popular title song of the film, Dhadkan. There was also a song sung by him in the movie Kartoos, starting Sanjay Dutt and Manisha Koirola. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan holds the world record for the largest recorded output by a Qawwali artist—a total of 125 albums. Nusrat was taken ill with kidney and liver failure on August 11, 1997 in London, England while on the way to Los Angeles in order to receive a kidney transplant. Nusrat died of a sudden cardiac arrest at Cromwell Hospital, London, on Saturday, August 16, 1997, aged 48, at the height of his career. His body was returned to Faisalabad, Pakistan and his funeral was attended by thousands of people.

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Dead Can Dance …Music from the lost Tribes and Cultures

Dead Can Dance

 Dead Can Dance combine elements of European folk music -- particularly music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance -- with ambient pop and worldbeat flourishes. Their music began as collages made from musical lineages, lost tribes and cultures long since forgotten - and by giving new life to so much from the past, they created a genuinely timeless body of work. They shared vocal responsibilities, and while Perry was certainly capable of haunting subtleties and real sonority as a singer, it was more often Gerrard's rhapsodic vocalising that drew the attention of critics and fans. In a sense, Gerrard didn't simply sing for Dead Can Dance: she made sounds with her voice, and turned that experience into something much larger and more far-ranging than mere singing.

Perry's soundscapes blur distinctions between organic and sampled, old and new, drawing on disparate traditions (neo–classical, choral, baroque, and troubadour) and weaving together influences from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean and beyond. Somehow Dead Can Dance managed to create a world of profound artistic integrity while simultaneously appealing to fans of what was termed 'alternative rock' music. And in so doing Dead Can Dance became - over the course of their career - 4AD's most internationally successful artists. Their songs are of lost beauty, regret and sorrow, inspiration and nobility, and of the everlasting human goal of attaining a meaningful existence. Over the course of their career, Dead Can Dance has featured a multitude of members, but two musicians have remained at the core of the band -- guitarist Brendan Perry and vocalist Lisa Gerrard. Perry had previously been the lead vocalist and bassist for the Australian-based punk band the Scavengers, a group that was never able to land a recording contract. In 1979, the band changed its name to the Marching Girls, but still wasn't able to sign a contract. The following year, Perry left the group and began experimenting with electronic music, particularly tape loops and rhythms. In 1981, Perry formed Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erikson, and Simon Monroe. By 1982, Perry and Gerrard decided to relocate to London; Erikson and Monroe decided to stay in Australia.

Within a year, Dead Can Dance had signed a record deal with 4AD. In the spring of 1984, they released their eponymous debut album, comprised of songs the pair had written in the previous four years. By the end of the year, the group had contributed two tracks to It'll End in Tears, the first album by This Mortal Coil, and had released an EP called Garden of the Arcane Delights. In 1985, Dead Can Dance released their second album, Spleen and Ideal. The album helped build their European cult following, peaking at number two on the U.K. indie charts. For the next two years, Dead Can Dance was relatively quiet, releasing only two new songs in 1986, both which appeared on the 4AD compilation Lonely Is an Eyesore. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, the group's third album appeared in 1986. In 1988, the band released its fourth album, The Serpent's Egg, and wrote the score for the Agustí Villaronga film El Niño de la Luna, which also featured Lisa Gerrard in her acting debut.

Dead Can Dance

Aion, Dead Can Dance's fifth album, was released in 1990. Also in 1990, the group toured America for the first time, earning rave reviews. The following year, the group was involved in various festivals and theatrical productions. In 1991, the compilation A Passage in Time was released on Rykodisc, making it the first American release of Dead Can Dance music. Early in 1993, the group provided the score to Baraka and contributed songs to Sahara Blue. In the fall of 1993, they released Into the Labyrinth, which became their first proper studio album to receive an American release. Into the Labyrinth was a cult success throughout the U.S. and Europe. It was followed by another American and European tour, which was documented on the 1994 album and film Toward the Within. In 1995, Lisa Gerrard released her debut solo album, The Mirror Pool. In the summer of 1996, Dead Can Dance released Spiritchaser and embarked on an international tour. The duo officially disbanded in 1999; Gerrard continued working as a solo artist and composed music for films such as Heat, The Insider, and Gladiator. Perry also established a solo career, issuing Eye of the Hunter in 2000. In 2001, Rhino released the band's first comprehensive box set, Dead Can Dance 1981-1998. Rumors of their reunion also began to swirl around this time; however, Gerrard's solo career remained steadfast. Dead Can Dance reunited in 2005 and released limited-edition recordings of 13 shows from its European tour, and eight recordings from the subsequent North American tour, as well as a compilation titled “Selections from Europe 2005.”

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Talvin Singh …Eclipse Psychotropic Fusion

Talvin Singh 

Talvin Singh (Matharu) (born in 1970 in Leytonstone, London, England) is a classically proficient tabla player, music producer and DJ. He marries the classic ethnicities of the East with the modern dance-club textures of the West, a style he defines as "tablatronics." Rising to recognition in the mid-1990s, Singh was one of the first to announce Indian music to today’s conventional youth and to simultaneously inspire a new path for emerging electronica artists. But unlike most of his cliques, including some simply taking advantage of the growing interest in Eastern music, Singh aptly uncovers the common rhythms inherent to both forms, and the result sounds fluid and natural, not contrived or forced. He is generally considered to be the 'father' of Asian underground music and was a central figure in developing and promoting this music at the Blue Note club.

Talvin Singh is one of the first artists to help bring traditional Indian tabla music to the mainstream, combining it with the rhythmic surges of drum ‘n’ bass. By 1997, he was able to speak in an assured fashion about the historic place and function of traditional Indian music. Head of the Omni Records label, based in south London, Singh is a virtuoso tabla player and an accomplished composer and arranger. As a child he travelled to India’s Punjab region to study percussion with his uncle and grandfather, before becoming immersed in the acid house scene in the late 80s. The arrival of ambient and drum ‘n’ bass music in the early 90s inspired Singh to begin producing material, and in 1996 he released the ultra-rare Calcutta Cyber Cafe disc. By his early twenties Singh was also a veteran of recording sessions with Björk, Sun Ra and Future Sound of London.

Excluding creative talent and years of practice, a central reason why his compositions and arrangements work so well in comparison to others’ is the fact that Singh views music-making as a personal process. Singh’s exposure to both cultures has likewise played a major role in his ability to identify and articulate the common threads. He was born in 1970 in London to Indian-born parents. His mother and father, after fleeing the regime of Idi Amin in Uganda in the 1960s, had arrived in Great Britain via Kenya. From a very young age, Singh felt drawn to both the world of his family’s origin and to the place of his own birth. An energetic child, he expressed a penchant for percussion at an early age, playing pots and pans at home around age five. He then took up the tabla, a percussion instrument made of two drums, at around age seven. Not much later, he also began break dancing to hip-hop with other Asian kids in the neighborhood. By the 1980s, Singh was listening to every type of techno and acid house music he could find.

DJ Talvin Singh 

In addition to his varied interests, Singh remained dedicated to traditional Indian music and percussion as well. At 16 years of age, he traveled to the Punjab region of India to study classical tabla with the master Pundit Lashman Singh for a year, continuing thereafter to visit his teacher for a time each winter. However, Singh knew that on a certain level, he could not play exclusively Indian classical music. "There have been times in my life when I just wanted to play Indian classical music, but that’s where my identity crisis kicked in," he concluded, as quoted by the BBC. "I didn’t feel it was really me."

Singh released his first solo outing. OK, an East/West fusion album populated by arrangements of strings, breakbeats, and tablas, won for Singh the highly coveted Mercury Music Prize. In addition to solo success with OK and Ha, Singh remains a much-sought-after producer, remixer, performer, and collaborator. Perhaps his greatest achievement in this capacity was accepting an invitation to join Tabla Beat Science, an outfit featuring percussionists Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, and Karsh Kale, sarangi player Sultan Khan, and composer/producer/bassist Bill Laswell. In 2000 the group released Tala Matrix on Laswell’s Axiom label to great acclaim.

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John Butler :One Of The Best Bands You Never Heard Of!

John Butler

John Butler is an Australian guitarist, musician, and singer. He fronts the John Butler Trio and the band is very popular in Australia. John Butler’s music is not easily classified but has influences of styles including folk, rock, Eastern, Celtic and bluegrass all rolled into one. He sings and plays a variety of instruments including the guitar, the lap steel guitar, ukulele, banjo and didgeridoo. In 1998 John Butler was busking on the streets of Fremantle, West Australia. 3500 self-funded cassette sales served as the foundation for becoming Australia’s most successful independent artist ever. Fast forward to 2009 and his label Jarrah Records has now been responsible for 800,000 CD sales in Australia.

 John Butler was born in California in 1975– his mother American and his father Australian. After his parents divorced in 1986, John Butler was taken to live in Australia by his father along with his brother and sister. The family moved to the small Western Australia town of Pinjarra where John Butler attended school. John Butler started learning the guitar aged 16 and was given his Grandfather’s 1930 Dobro guitar by his grandmother. This guitar was to be given to the first grandchild in the family to learn the guitar and it is one of John Butler’s most treasured possessions. In 1996 John Butler attended Curtin University Perth to train as an art teacher, but continued with his music. Though he spent the first 11 years of his life in California, it was in Australia -- his father's native land -- that guitarist John Butler picked up the instrument that would later launch his music career.

 One of John Butler’s strongest musical influences was fellow Aussie musician Jeff Lang. John Butler was inspired by Lang’s use of open tunings which gave his music a slightly Indian / Celtic feel and he started to compose his own music in the same way. He started performing in Freemantle, performing his own songs and compositions, selling his home recorded cassettes of his instrumental compositions titled “Searching for Heritage”. He dropped out of university in 1998 to concentrate on his music and after local music promoter Phil Stevens bought his cassette and offered him a regular spot at his Mojos nightclub in Freemantle, John Butler quickly gathered a fan base and Stevens became his manager. John Butler formed the trio in 1998 with the addition of bass player and drummer and recorded first album “John Butler” in 1998.  However, the breakthrough came with the bands second album “Three”, released in 2001, which later went Platinum. “Sunrise over the Sea” followed in 2004 was awarded 5 x Platinum and is the most successful album to date. “Grand National” from 2007 and “April Uprising” released 2010 have also reached number one is Australia and gone Platinum. The band has also released two successful live albums. John Butler has started playing outside of his native Australia but has yet to become a household name aboard.

John Charles Butler

In 2009 he toured the US and also played a couple of dates in the UK including the Cambridge folk festival. Still partnered with Jarrah Records, the indie label that he and fellow Aussies the Waifs had founded in order to distribute their music overseas, Butler released Grand National worldwide in March 2007. Grand National was an ambitious project, featuring more instruments than the band's past releases, as well as multiple guest appearances. It was also the last album to feature band members Shannon Birchall and Michael Barker, as Butler restructured the trio's lineup in 2009 in order to keep the music fresh. Featuring bassist Byron Luiters and drummer Nicky Bomba, the revised John Butler Trio returned to the studio later that year to commence work on April Uprising, the band's fifth studio album, which was released in early 2010. While touring later that year, the group recorded a particularly memorable performance at Red Rocks Amphitheater, which was packaged into a three-disc live album and released in 2011 as Live at Red Rocks.

John Butler is known as the million dollar hippy after making it onto the Australia rich list and he has won numerous Australian music industry awards including Best Male Artist in 2004. JBT have taken their music to the world and continue to grow in stature and popularity in USA, Europe and Japan. They have become favorites at iconic festivals such as Fuji Rock Festival, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, Big Day Out, and Coachella where Bruce Fessier of USA Today said “John Butler revealed himself to be arguably the finest guitarist at Coachella Festival“.

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Paradox Trio …. Melding of Jazz and Creative Improvisation

Paradox Trio

New York based PARADOX TRIO creates original music inspired by Eastern European, Balkan, Gypsy and downtown traditions. In the last seven years the quartet has toured and played major festivals throughout the U.S., Europe and Canada. The group’s dynamic performances and approach cut across stylistic and geographic boundaries creating an unusual and eclectic sound, redefining the concept “world beat”. The group features Matt Darriau on two unique and lyrical Bulgarian instruments, the Kaval (end-blown flute, like the Arabic ney) and the Gaida (bagpipe) as well as saxes and clarinets. With Brad Shepik on guitars, Rufus Cappadocia on cello and Seido Salifoski on dumbek. Matt Darriau was named one of the most influental jazz musicians of thelast fifteen years by Jazziz Magazine for bringing balkan rhythms and melodies into jazz. The quartet continued without a lineup change throughout the '90s and well into the 2000s.

Along with Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, Pachora, and Brad Shepik & the Commuters (all including Shepik), during the '90s Paradox Trio were in the forefront of New York groups melding an edgy downtown sensibility with Eastern European and Middle Eastern influences. The group became known for its rousing shows at the Bell Café in New York's Soho (Tiny Bell Trio derived its name from the same venue) and the Knitting Factory, the well-known downtown club whose label released the ensemble's eponymous first CD in 1995. The band was one of the first to give traditional ethnic music a distinctly downtown flavor. Certainly, Darriau was in the first wave of artists to introduce Eastern European and Middle Eastern melodies, scales, and rhythms into the downtown mix. The third Paradox Trio CD on the Knitting Factory label, Source, aptly summarized the multicultural influences defining much of Darriau's recorded output; the 1999 album found the group exploring music of the late-period Ottoman Empire, where the East and West met and co-mingled, forever influencing art and culture throughout most of the 20th century. Source and the band's other Knitting Factory discs have unfortunately gone out of print, but Paradox was still going strong as of the mid-2000s, with club and festival appearances and the release of 2005's Gambit on the Enja label.

Paradox have also performed live in accompaniment to classic silent films; an excerpt from the band's performance of Darriau's score to the Salvador Dali/Luis Buñuel surrealist landmark Un Chien Andalou can be heard on the What Is Jazz? 1996 CD, which features live tracks from various artists who performed at the Knitting Factory's creative jazz fest that year. While often considered primarily a creative outlet for Darriau, Paradox Trio have served as an important working group for all four of its members, with Shepik second to Darriau in contributing arrangements for the band. As Shepik continued to increase his involvement -- both as leader and sideman -- in other groups during the new millennium, guitarist Dave Fiuczynski (Screaming Headless Torsos, Hasidic New Wave) would sometimes replace him as Paradox Trio's guitarist in live appearances.

Paradox Trio

During the 2000s, after the heyday of the downtown scene had passed, New York's "Gypsy punk" bands began receiving considerable attention from Brooklyn live music scenesters and music critics -- Paradox Trio could easily be seen as forefathers of the Gypsy punkers, albeit with a stronger jazz sensibility. In fact, in terms of direct connections, accordionist Yuri Lemeshev of Gogol Bordello has been in the Paradox orbit, performing live with the band on various occasions (and also touring in a duo with Darriau), and Slavic Soul Party!, another band of the 2000s often included under the "Gypsy punk" rubric, included Darriau in a touring lineup.

The journey of paradox trio is unmatched by any other contempory group mixing traditional eastern European sounds. The expected becomes the unexpected when Matt Darriau, the leader of this talented ensemble, takes tradition into Jazz and Ambient and sometimes what seems like hard rock. A extremely intelligent band with provocative and energetic music through deep roots to keep its soaring heights connected to something substantial.

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Susheela Raman ...Rejoicing the fender-bender of Musical Cultures

Susheela Raman

‘How many roads have I wandered/none and each my own/behind me the bridges have crumbled/where then will I call my home?’

That is the resonant challenge at the Centre of Raman’s music. She creates a new identity though her voice, culture and song. Raman is Indian, Tamil, Eng-lish, a Londoner, a European, An Asian and Australian to boot! Born in London to Tamil parents and raised in Australia she grew up in a home full of Carnatic music (the South Indian classical tradition). Teenage rebellion led her towards black American soul, blues and funk and at just 16 she was leading her own funk and soul band in Sydney. In ´97 she moved to London and met guitarist and producer Sam Mills renowned for his work with African and Bangladeshi musicians. They started to develop a new sound drawing on Indian and western influences and encompassing English songs, Sanskrit texts, their own compositions and reinventions of songs from the Carnatic repertoire. Three years of rich experimentation resulted in “Salt Rain”, her Mercury Music Prize nominated 2001 debut.

World music's latest darling and 2002 winner of the BBC Radio 3's Newcomer Award, Susheela Raman flipped the script on world music hybrids when she released Salt Rain in 2001. The album was everything you could want in a cross-genre effort: intelligent, nuanced and, best of all, never watered down. As an artist Raman continues to develop, exploring issues of identity with new sounds that celebrate multiplicity. She draws her collaborators from across Europe, Asia and Africa: Cameroonian bassist Hilaire Penda, Guinea-Bissau born percussionist Djanuno Dabo, American drummer Marque Gilmore, British-Asian tabla player Aref Durvesh and of course British guitarist and producer Sam Mills are at the heart of this album as they were Salt Rain. And again this record is about great songs imaginatively played and beautifully sung. If Raman’s voice on Salt Rain had a charming, perishable naivety and Love Trap reflected the strains of touring, Raman’s voice here serves notice of an artist entering her prime, her singing richer and stronger than ever before.

Paradoxically, the record is, both more English and more Indian than Salt Rain and Love Trap. More than half the songs are in English (her first language) and Raman emerges as a formidable songwriter. And where on the previous albums there were musicians from everywhere playing Indian songs, here we have musicians from India playing songs in English. A new dimension came from recording in India, as well as in the UK and France. The Indian presence adds joy, light and depth to the record. Oddly, this is her first record to feature musicians from India.

Susheela Raman World Fusion Music Artist

 It’s difficult to say where the Indian, African and European elements begin and end. Everything overlaps and intermingles. With a justified reputation as an incandescent live performer, Susheela has made five classic albums: After ‘Salt Rain” (2001) came ‘Love Trap’ (2003) which was recorded in Spain and featured her version of ‘ the Mukesh classic ‘Ye Mera Divanapan Hai’ which was used by Mira Nair in her film “The Namesake”. ‘Music for Crocodiles’ (2005)  was her third album and was recorded partly in Chennai. That was the time I really started to make music in India, an adventure that is still unfolding. She took a interesting step in 2007, recording ‘33 1/3’ in Iceland (!) which was an album of reinterpretations of some classic rock tracks such as Dylan ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, and ‘Voodoo Chile’: It wasn’t about doing ‘covers’, it was about trying to take each song somewhere quite different. All her albums chart a personal relationship with musical history and her own role as a conduit where musical oceans meet. Each Susheela album is a big vision that retains its freshness and uniqueness for a long time to come. “I find new people are discovering, sharing my previous album all the time. I’m glad each has their own life.”

Susheela has always made music a vehicle of emotion with the same intensity of purpose that she offers herself and her music and to her audience. The songs she writes and interpret can come from any background, east, north, south or west. The key is that she makes them her own and then shares them, fashioning both into spears that penetrate the soul.

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Ottmar Liebert : Leaning Into the Night

Ottmar Liebert

Ottmar Liebert has said that "flamenco is a music both romantic and dangerous; it is an attitude as much as it is a musical genre." Therein lies the philosophy that catapulted him to fame at the end of the 80's with an engaging mix of subdued flamenco guitar and South American percussion, rock, jazz, and pop influences. Liebert's "attitude" actually suppresses the more challenging and "dangerous" aspects of flamenco in favor of the romantic -- and the stylish. He's not a technical wizard on the guitar, but he has a feel for the music's innate sensuality and a gift for creating memorable melodies.

Liebert’s incredible global success on a musical level often seems like a simple outgrowth of his cultural background and powerful wanderlust in his formative years. Born in Cologne, Germany, to a Chinese-German father and a Hungarian mother, Liebert traveled throughout Russia and Asia before moving to Boston and eventually settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After years of trying to hit the big time in various jazz-funk bands, he began playing acoustic guitar in Santa Fe restaurants. His first (self-produced) cassette, Nouveau Flamenco, was basically recorded for friends, but the album received heavy radio airplay on WAVE in Los Angeles. Higher Octave Records re-released it nationally in 1990. After his subsequent album Borrasca quickly climbed the charts, Liebert was picked up by a major label, Epic. With his enigmatic stage presence, Liebert has brought flamenco to mainstream America with a certain level of class and accessibility. His prowess as a composer and instrumentalist has steadily improved over the years.

By 1989, he had founded the first incarnation of his new band Luna Negra. Nouveau Flamenco began life as a self-produced local release called Marita: Shadows and Storms, copies of which local Indian artist Frank Howell distributed in his art galleries. When the record found its way to radio stations and began generating a buzz among programmers and an unprecedented response among listeners, Higher Octave Music picked it up and released a fully remastered version.

“I was honestly happy playing this music in hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, and going in one year from doing that to opening for Miles Davis was a pretty intense jump,” he recalls. “Most shocking for me was to realize how many different people from so many diverse cultures embraced it. I still get letters from fans in Europe, South-America, Australia, and Asia...it’s been a really gratifying experience. I’ve had the opportunity to play in a wide variety of cultural settings with musicians from around the world, and that has been a great experience, too.”

Ottmar Liebert

Liebert has since become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade, thrilling audiences throughout the world and releasing a catalog of classic recordings, including the remix collection Euphoria (1995), the live album Viva! (1995), the double CD Opium (1996) and the classical-oriented orchestral album Leaning into the Night (1997). He wrapped up his decade with Epic with 2001’s Little Wing and went back to Higher Octave Music, releasing a lush album of lullabies called In the Arms of Love in 2002 and an album with Luna Negra XL called The Santa Fe Sessions (2003).

La Semana (2004) was the first all-new band album in five years, followed by Winter Rose (2005), which featured original pieces, classical music and Christmas songs. In 2006 Liebert's record label SSRI released One Guitar, his first solo guitar recording, which received Liebert's fourth nomination for a Grammy. His newest releases are Up Close (2008), which is a binaural dummy head surround sound recording, and The Scent of Light (2008) a labor of five years. Five time Grammy nominated guitarist Ottmar Liebert has release some of the most successful instrumental guitar albums ever, with more Gold and Platinum certifications than any other acoustic guitarist. (RIAA)

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Jan Garbarek ...The Sound Of Silence

Jan Garbarek Saxophone

 The Norwegian saxophone player, Jan Garbarek had an early breakthrough into the elite of modern jazz in the 60's, due to his extensive cooperation with Keith Jarrett. His name is listed next to the big names from the U.S. and is associated with the birth of an original European sound in jazz. His tone is clear, independent, ascetic and pure. "The north and nature, song and mystery" are what Garbarek calls his origins and these are his reputable heritage. If it wasn't for his strong inner connection with Norwegian folklore, he wouldn't be able to integrate Brazilian and Asiatic influences as convincingly as he does. That the origin of all music lies in song, is to be felt in many of his compositions, and his greatest attention lies on melody and on the clear articulation of melodious-lines, that he plays with unmistakable impressive urgency.

 "In my best moments I hope to give meaning to every note".

Jan Garbarek's Chamber music-Jazz might well be the most beautiful sound next to silence, and he, as sculptor of these sounds, is entrancingly connected with the illustrative and folkloristic qualities and influences. He is an original stylist always searching for new realms for his intense and extremely visual music.
Jan Garbarek (born 4 March 1947 in Mysen, Norway) is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czeslaw Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter. Effectively stateless until the age of seven (there is no automatic grant of citizenship in Norway) Garbarek grew up in Oslo. At 21, he married Vigdis. His daughter Anja Garbarek is also a musician.

 Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist

Garbarek's sound is one of the hallmarks of the ECM record label, which has released virtually all of his recordings. His style incorporates a sharp-edged tone, long, keening, sustained notes, and generous use of silence. He began his recording career in the late 1960s, notably featuring on recordings by the American jazz composer George Russell (such as Othello Ballet Suite and Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature). If he had initially appeared as a devotee of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, by 1973 he had turned his back on the harsh dissonances of avant-garde jazz, retaining only his tone from his previous approach. Garbarek gained wider recognition through his work with pianist Keith Jarrett's European Quartet which released the albums Belonging (1974), My Song (1977) and the live recordings Personal Mountains (1979), and Nude Ants (1979).[2] He was also a featured soloist on Jarrett's orchestral works Luminessence (1974) and Arbour Zena (1975)[3]



As a composer, Garbarek tends to draw heavily from Scandinavian folk melodies, a legacy of his Ayler influence. He is also a pioneer of ambient jazz composition, most notably on his 1976 album Dis a collaboration with guitarist Ralph Towner that featured the distinctive sound of a wind harp on several tracks. This textural approach, which rejects traditional notions of thematic improvisation (best exemplified by Sonny Rollins) in favor of a style described by critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton as "sculptural in its impact", has been critically divisive. Garbarek's more meandering recordings are often labeled as New Age music, a style generally scorned by more orthodox jazz musicians and listeners, or spiritual ancestors thereof. Other experiments have included setting a collection of poems of Olav H. Hauge to music, with a single saxophone complementing a full mixed choir; this has led to notable performances with Grex Vocalist, but not yet to recordings. In the 1980s, Garbarek's music began to incorporate synthesizers and elements of world music. He has collaborated with Indian and Pakistani musicians such as Trilok Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Ustad Fateh Ali Khan.

In 1994, during heightened popularity of Gregorian chant, his album Officium, a collaboration with early music vocal performers the Hilliard Ensemble, became one of ECM's biggest-selling albums of all time, reaching the pop charts in several European countries and was followed by a sequel, Mnemosyne, in 1999. In 2005, his album In Praise of Dreams was nominated for a Grammy. Garbarek's first live album Dresden was released in 2009. In his compositions and improvisations Jan Garbarek is a master of unbelievable tuneful music that cuts right into our soul. His concerts develop in a highly organic manner providing a wide ark of rising tension. This music sounds simple and complex at the same time, this music is hymnal and sparse, playful and serious, immersed and exceptionally open, intense rather than sentimental.

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Trilok Gurtu : Improvised Funk from the East

Trilok Gurtu

 The musical traditions of the eastern and western worlds are bridged through the improvisations of Bombay, India-born percussionist/vocalist Trilok Gurtu. Gurtu's mastery of post-bop jazz has not gone unnoticed. Downbeat magazine named him "best percussionist" in three critic and popularity polls and proclaimed, "Musically, the world is his stage". Jazz magazine, Straight No Chaser took a similar view, writing, "this music has a transcendental quality and removes any obstacles that lie between western and eastern improvised music." Gurtu's eclectic approach has enabled him to collaborate with some of the world's greatest musicians. A world class, virtuoso percussionist, now in his mid-fifties, Trilok has attracted a world class set of collaborators over a long career. Trilok Gurtu was born into a highly musical family in Bombay, India where his grandfather was a noted Sitar player and his mother Shobha Gurtu, a classical singing star and constant influence. He began to play practically from infancy at the age of six. Eventually Trilok traveled to Europe, joining up with trumpeter Don Cherry (father of Neneh and Eagle Eye) for two years; touring worldwide with Oregon, the highly respected jazz group and was an important part of the quartet that L. Shankar led with Jan Garbarek and Zakir Hussain.

In 1988 Trilok performed with his own group, finally being able to present his compositions on the debut album “Usfret” which many musicians claim as an important influence; young Asian musicians from London like Talvin Singh, Asian Dub Foundation and Nitin Sawhney see him as a mentor and so Trilok’s work finds its way onto the turntables at dance clubs years later. But back in 1988 Trilok met The Mahavishnu Orchestra and its leader, JohnMcLaughlin and for the next four years played an integral part in The John McLaughlin Trio.

Trilok Gurtu

In 1993 Trilok toured his own trio in support of the album “The Crazy Saints”, which featured not only Joe Zawinul but also Pat Metheny. Audiences were enthralled by his compositions that linked subtle Indian rhythms and Indian singing with elements of modern jazz and rock. The following year the band was expanded to a quartet and touring extended to include a US coast-to-coast tour and 40+ European shows. Band tours continued annually establishing Trilok Gurtu as a regular and popular visitor to many European and US cities; his group, The Glimpse was formed in 1996 which grew from his musical roots in India’s timeless acoustic tradition. By the late 90’s they were touring worldwide and appearing in Festivals where he performed alongside the megastars of the entertainment business (Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, REM) as well as his colleagues in the World Music scene like Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Cesaria Evora and Salif Keita. The “Kathak”,“African Fantasy” and “Beat of Love” cds came about in 1998/9, 2000/1 as a direct result of these years: Trilok’s music entered a distinctly World Music setting. - a new sound that contained the core of his previous works but expanded on it allowing guest singers like Neneh Cherry, Salif Keita, Angelique Kidjo and Oumou Sangare to display their talents on Trilok’s own recordings.

When Trilok hit the live performance circuit in 2000 and 2001, audiences saw the group with special guest appearances by Nitin Sawhney, Angelique Kidjo, Salif Keita and “The Beat of Love” producer Wally Badarou in New York and London. In between group performances he appeared at a number of prestigious solo percussion recitals and gave guest performances on albums by John McLaughlin, Pharoah Sanders, Nitin Sawhney, Lalo Schifrin, Gilberto Gil, Bill Laswell & Annie Lennox.

The release of “Remembrance” in 2002 was a major milestone for Trilok. The guests Shankar Mahadevan, Zakir Hussain, Ronu Majumdar and Shobha Gurtu gave superb performances. Combined with extensive touring across Europe and especially Scandinavia, this led to Trilok’s second nomination for the BBC World Music Awards and for an EMMA. 2003 saw a wide variety of over 50 performances all over the globe from Trilok Gurtu in quartet, trio and solo formats. His first collaboration in an orchestral piece took place in Koln in October, with the World Premiere of “Chalan” written especially for him by Maurizio-Sotelo. In 2004, Gurtu teamed up with DJ Robert Miles on the excellent Miles_Gurtu.

No musician has done more than Trilok Gurtu to blend the subtleties of Eastern and Western music to create something original, dynamic and compelling. His willingness to experiment and go beyond the bounds of conventional music is a testament of his versatility.

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Anoushka Shankar : A World Sound Travelogue

Anoushka Shankar 

The daughter of ‘The godfather of world music” Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar began learning the ropes under her father at age nine, making her performing debut four years later. Appearing alongside her father as he toured the world, her career was international from the start. She made her debut performance in 1995 in New Delhi at the age of thirteen. She was born in London in 1982, and spent her early years shuttling back and forth between London and New Delhi. She is a dedicated disciple of her father who has immersed herself in classical Hindustani music. Anoushka has forged a sovereign identity by collaborating with a vast assortment of artistes from jazz icon, Herbie Hancock and violinist, Joshua Bell to the DJ duo, Thievery Corporation, rock band, Jethro Tull and Asian Underground pioneer, Karsh Kale. Her latest project is her most artistically ambitious, tracing the Roma people’s diaspora from their forgotten homeland in Rajasthan to Spain, where Gypsy culture mixed with Judaic and North African currents to form the passionate sound of flamenco. Anoushka displays not only an impressive technical command, but a flair for making the sitar speak a number of musical tongues.

Anoushka was the first Indian musician to perform at the Grammy Awards in 2006 when she was nominated for Rise, soon after becoming the youngest-ever nominee and the first woman nominated in the World Music category, for her album Live at Carnegie Hall in 2002. At sixteen she signed an exclusive recording contract with Angel/EMI and released three classical recordings: Anoushka (1998), Anourag (2000) and Live at Carnegie Hall (2001), all to great critical acclaim. On Rise (2005), Anoushka composed, arranged and produced her own music, influenced by East and West, employing both acoustic and electronic instrumentation. The positive response for Rise turned into a second Grammy nomination and a global tour of over ninety concerts, and Anoushka formed the Anoushka-Shankar Project to maintain a distinction between this more experimental work and her classical sitar concerts.

Anoushka Shankar

In 2007, Anoushka collaborated with the talented Indian-American musician Karsh Kale, to create the album Breathing Under Water. This album featured guest appearances by Anoushka’s father, her halfsister Norah Jones, Sting, and many others.If there was one album you needed to have in your collection as an entry point to her music “Breathing under Water” would be it. It’s a marvellous marine musical journey. It just lets the music wash over you. It is perhaps “music of the gods”. It is as if Anoushka and Karsh Kale have taken all their influence and perfectly melded them into something beautiful and new. This album reminds us that in a world where one finds West Coast yogis immersed in Eastern culture and the New York underground drawinginspiration from the Mumbai club scene, where globalisation is an internal state-of-being and borders were made to be crossed.Until recent times Anoushka Shankar and her sister Norah Jones did not know each other - and their family history is a tale of two worlds. While Norah shot to fame with a smoky voice and a bestselling jazz-tinged album “Come away with Me.”, Anoushka, by following her father and taking up the sitar, has had a lower profile. Anoushka, daughter of Ravi’s second wife Sukanya, was born in London but jetted between here, California and Delhi as she grew up, learning her father’s ancient craft.

Norah grew up In a modest home in Dallas with her mother, waitressing and playing the piano in bars. Recently after reuniting as long lost sisters, Anoushka and Norah accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award for their father, Ravi Shankar at the 55th Annual Grammy as well.Anoushka has developed a strong bond with Western classical music; as a teenager she had the good fortune of performing in duet with legends such as cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (2000), and flautistJean-Pierre Rampal (1998). She has also appeared as a soloist with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, and premiered her father’s 3rd Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra with th

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Prem Joshua : The Sky Grazes The Earth

Prem Joshua

Multi-instrumentalist and composer “Prem Joshua” is an innovator extraordinaire in the field of World Fusion Music. Joshua plays bamboo flutes, sitar, santoor, dilruba to perfection while belting out haunting vocal passages. Additional musicians contribute through keyboards, programming and loads of percussion on many of his albums.  His music has the uncanny ability to passage the listener beyond boundaries to the East and West taking them on a musical journey. Having traveled between India and Europe for over twenty years, Prem Joshua has studied with some of India’s finest musicians, including sitar maestro Ustad Usman Khan. Joshua lures deeply from the well of eastern traditions, but has never lost touch with the pulse of contemporary western music. You've probably heard his music used in many TV commercials in Sri Lanka as well. Prem Joshua has made India his second home, learning music at the bases of many gurus. Through those teachings he has articulated his own distinctive Indo-Jazz fusion panache of music that has made him a household name in the music circles.

Born to a musical family in Germany, Joshua began to pick up the flute at the tender age of five. Eventually the need to continuously search for fresh ways to express and expand his music range and spirituality dragged him towards India. The picture-perfect mix of the culture and music was the potpourri he was searching in life. Joshua once said that He recollects hearing Indian music for the first time, age 16 – a record of a sitar performance by Ravi Shankar: “I had never heard anything like this before,” Joshua recalls. “It was beyond my musical grasp and experience but was something of such immense beauty and depth. It felt unfamiliar and mysterious - yet at the same time like a remembrance of something I knew very well.”

So at the age of 18 he left home and high school and terminated his entire career plans to go overland from Europe to India expecting a life changing experience. On his first three treks to the East he journeyed thru countries like Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And he became profoundly tangled with customary oriental folk music, performing live with and learning from local musicians. This exposure aided him to become the modern maharishi of East-West Fusion Music.

Prem Joshua & Band 

Thinking of giving this band a spin? I would suggest you getting your hand on the magnum opus: “Sky Kisses Earth". it is a profoundly sensual album. It’s a meditative piece, transporting Heaven to Earth. The title track is a 13 minute long reflective journey. One can imagine the great winds hammering down from the skies on a summer afternoon. "Dakini" is a 12 minute ode to the sky dancing goddesses of Tibetan Buddhism. It celebrates the feminine. "Night Rain" evokes a gentle downpour. "The Seventh Eclipse" is more hushed and sober. It evokes the entwining of the sun and the moon in a loving embrace. For a more recent recording, may I suggest "Water down the Ganges" .It’s absolute aquatic meditation. It's an illusory journey down India's holy river. The music just washes over you. It's a fitting companion for Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale's "Breathing under Water." Let the music wash over you.

I have pinned my ears back to many European musicians who claim to play Indian & raga fusion. Sadly it usually sounds “Fake”. However, not this group of musicians! This band conveys an honest manifestation of heart informed by life experiences. It has diversity, sophistication and amazement on each note. To date Joshua has released 14 albums. They continue to tour the world for concerts on numerous instances to perform to an ever snowballing number of music lovers in the USA, Japan, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Europe. Inspiring them with a musical message that spreads beyond the borders of tradition, politics, religion and acceptance.

Sky Kisses Earth |Listen:  http://bit.ly/HhqY0f
the track starts off with harmonious voices blended with Sitar and Santoor and soon the beats kick in…. 

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