Distant Kin

Funded by the Scottish Arts council, this eight-track gem captures a collaboration between six Celtic and three Indian musicians from live concerts, including the premiere at Glasgow's Celtic Connections Festival and ones in San Francisco. Fusion can easily end up being lowest-common-denominator stuff, but not here. The careful and tasteful balance of percussion, flutes, violins and the warm pipes of Fraser Fifield allow Tony Byrne's guitar to add delicate, sparse harmonies, without departing from or disrupting the modality of the two principal musical influences.

Celtic traditional tunes are presented alongside rich melodic writing, very much on the light side but achieving an excellent blend of styles. There are also surprising moments of melodic counterpoint – exciting in that this is not a traditional Indian music practice by any means – and there are gentle juxtapositions delivered with total beauty, mastery and considerable emotional depth. Rakesh Chaurasia's bansuri (flute) dances around Jean-Michel Veillon's transverse flute; Zakir Hussain is almost understated in his accompaniments, leaving equal room for John Joe Kelly's bodhrán (frame drum) and there is powerful contrast in the trio of violins – Patsy Reid, Ganesh Rajagopalan and Charlie McKerron. Each player is given solos and when in combination or playing with the full consort, the two musical traditions do not seem ever to disagree or clash.