Author: Kulbir Natt
View album and artist detailsArtist/band: |
VM Bhatt & Matt Malley |
Label: |
World Village 468097 |
Magazine Review Date: |
July/2010 |
Sleepless Nights is a palatable musical aperitif for those uninitiated into Indian classical music, as well as being pleasant drive¬time music that is easy on the ear. It's largely an amalgam of light Indian classical and folk music on the Indianised slide guitar, laced with gentle percussive beats and stitched together with bass riffs. Most of the tracks are gently paced, almost subdued, and ease themselves into a higher gear without reaching the crescendo sometimes associated with heavy classical music. Shades of several ragas, albeit heavily modified, rear their heads. The title-track contains references to ragas ‘Khamaj’ and ‘Kalavati’, to create an ambient mood of pining and longing. Another features a jazzed up version of ‘Raga Mand, while ‘Languid with Longing’ is a wonderful rendition of the romantic, lilting melodies associated with ‘Raga Kirwani.’
The percussive elements, mostly tabla, often just padding away, are nonetheless intelligently interweaved into the music, and generally stay in the background of the strong melodies wholly created by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Several oddities are apparent, however. The first track, reminiscent of the theme tune of the film The Third Man, is played on the zither and dosed with melodies from the Hawaiian beaches, sitting uncomfortably with the other tracks. Also superfluous, perhaps, is the short bandish, sung by Bhatt, that introduces The Eternal Wait’, the melody of which is picked up by the instrumental piece that follows and stands up in its own right. Bhatt's musical genius on his 14-string slide guitar or mohan veena so often drowns out the bass guitar that one wonders, other than for marketing purposes, why Matt Malley's name is featured in the title of the album.
Start your journey and discover the very best music from around the world.
Subscribe