Samarpan

Introduced to Indian classical music by Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and the gloriously experimental Debashish Bhattachrya, the Indian slide guitar or mohan veena is one of the great innovations of the country’s recent musical history; the instrument is carefully modified with the addition of sympathetic strings to create drone effects and match the intricacies of the sitar, while still retaining the flexibility of a guitar.

Pingle started playing the mohan veena after studying classical Indian styles and becoming a disciple of the sitar maestro Ustad Shahid Parvez, and the three instrumental pieces on this album all follow the classical raga structure. One is over 20 minutes long, the others are nearer 12 minutes, but they all follow the same pattern. Each starts slowly, as Pingle matches a simple strummed guitar chord against repeated improvisation around a musical theme. And then the piece begins to speed up, once he is joined by an impressive tabla player, Uday Kulkarni, who echoes Pingle’s playing as he switches to different musical phrases, suddenly adding in controlled, rapid-fire bursts of guitar work. He describes Samarpan as a ‘meditation on devotion or dedication,’ and there’s a hypnotic appeal to his crisp, gently lively playing and improvisation.