Snatam Kaur - Grace
Sada Sat Kaur - Mantra Masala
Messiaen - Quartet For The End Of Time
John McLaughlin - Extrapolation
Talvin Singh - Ha
Shakti - A Handful of Beauty
A second Talvin Singh album appears this week. Ha I find a little more cohesive and consistent than his Mercury prize winning breakthrough album Ok released a couple of years earlier in 1998. Before both of these albums Singh became well known through his Soundz of the Asian Underground compilation album which arose out of the Anokha music club night he ran in London's East End in the mid 90s.
Continuing the Asian theme we have a couple of entries from one of the grandfathers of the British guitar playing family - jazz fusion artist John McLaughlin. Perhaps most famous for his Mahavishnu Orchestra (which I could never seem to get into for some reason although I loved their album covers!) Extrapolation was his 1969 debut solo album. The album consists of a series of superb electro-jazz instrumentals that merge as one, with McLaughlin's fluid lines soaring over double bass, cymbal-tastic percussion, and sax from John Surman. Great melodies and riffs and obviously a lot more guitar (including rhythm, funk and rock) than you get in most jazz albums. Extrapolation is one of the most powerful jazz albums I've ever heard.
McLaughlin went on to lend his considerable talents to Miles Davis's groundbreaking jazz fusion albums of the early 70s, most notably Bitches Brew.
Mahavishnu Orchestra were formed in 1971 with an all-star jazz cast including Jan Hammer and Billy Cobham. They had several incarnations during the 70s and 80s.
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During one Mahavishnu off season McLaughlin formed a side project, Shakti, with tabla player Zakir Hussain, which played more Indian influenced acoustic music. A Handful of Beauty was their second album released in 1976. It's a bit of showcase album, meaning I feel it highlights the talents of the musicians more than the actual music which, despite some quieter moments of beauty, I generally find a bit frenetic.
A but brief word on the other albums in this week's selection. I came to the Messiaen via comparisons with fellow avant garde 20th century composers Takemitsu (from the last couple of weeks) and Ligeti (most famous for the atmospheric music in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey). Written and first performed in a Nazi prison camp where Frenchman Olivier Messiaen was incarcerated during 1940-41 Quartet For The End Of Time is his most famous and celebrated piece although I haven't yet given the record enough attention to form an opinion. It's supposedly his masterpiece so let's see.
Then at the top of the list we have two Kundalini Yoga sound recordings of spiritual chants. The (I assume) adopted surname of "Kaur" used by both these singers is the female Sikh equivalent of the male name "Singh" (the inclusion of the Talvin Singh album this week is entirely coincidental - although subconciously almost certainly not!).
The Grace album has longer more repetitive and hypnotic chants with the Mantra Masala album being a bit more "poppy". Grace includes a rendition of the now very famous Long Time Sun song which incredibly was originally written and recorded by The Incredible String Band.