In Time

The most impressive aspect of this tight debut from the New York-based Akshara Music Ensemble is their brilliant manipulation of taal (beat), that is at once playful and mathematically precise. Under the leadership of Karnatic violinist and mridangam player Bala Skandan, the eight-piece ensemble layer a string section (violins, cellos and hammered dulcimer) and Jay Gandhi's thrilling bansuri (flute) over expert mridangam and tabla in a range of taals, punctuated with satisfying intervals of spoken konnakol percussion.
The energetic opener, ‘Mind the Gap’, draws attention to the space between beats as being of equal musical importance to the beats themselves – the track's titular ‘gap’, is infused with expectation by the melodic trajectory anticipated by the raga's principal notes. The three-beat ‘Mohana Blues’ (played in ‘Raga Mohanam’) teeters between comforting and wistful, the cello taking centre stage, while on ‘Shadjam’ the delicate layering of each instrument makes for a truly breathtaking piece. The real triumph of the album is ‘Opus in 5’, however: impossible to keep track of, the intricate five-beat call-and-response between percussion and konnakol is delightful in its unpredictability, with its periodic crescendos from the bansuri, violins, cellos and Max ZT's incredible dulcimer, expertly engineered to leave you wanting more. It's an album to play again and again.