Karsh Kale – Up (Six Degrees Records, 2016)
Six Degrees Records’s release of Karsh Kale’s Up is a bit like being shoved off a cliff and reveling in an expansive freefall surrounded by a frenzy of tabla and percussion, sizzling guitar lines, moody electronica and soaring vocals. It is a glorious swan dive into musical imagination of producer and multi-intrumentalist Karsh Kale.
With recordings like Cinema (2011), Realize (2006), Liberation (2007) and Broken English (2006) to his credit, Mr. Kale had continued to dazzle fans with performances around the globe, including a stint at spinning records for the Obama White House, as well as opening for A.R. Rahman at the Hollywood Bowl and joining Alicia Keys, the Black Keys, Norah Jones and Gary Clark, Jr. for a tribute concert to George Harrison. He’s also collaborated with the likes of Imogen Heap and Anoushka Shankar.
Proving there’s no rest for the weary, Mr. Kale uses that frustration of balancing the demands of an artist on the go and the constant travel with fatherhood as part of the inspiration for Up.
Mr. Kale says of the experience, “When you’re always traveling you’re never really ready to go. I’d be a father in Brooklyn one moment then fly to India and go straight to a TV show or a festival.”
Squeezing every ounce of creative juice of that frustration, Mr. Kale’s Up rides on air of constant motion and movement wrapped in intricate rhythms, high flying guitars and keyboards, furthered along by way bansuri flute, sitar and electronica to conjure up an Indian inspired mix that downright heady.
Up proves potent with opening track “High” with vocalist Milan Xai, bassist Tony Grey, electric bansuri player Ajay Prasanna and Mr. Kale on keyboards, samples, tabla, drum programming and additional bass. Title track “Up” is just as lush with Warren Mendonsa on acoustic and electric guitars, Ravi Chary on sitar, Karan Joseph on keyboards and Benny Dayal’s vocals and Mr. Kale on tabla, keyboards, drum kit, as well as offering up some sleekly cool vocals. And, Up just get better with tracks like “Butterfly Effect” with vocals by Ankita Joshi and Sabir Khan on sarangi, the electronically airy “Thin Line of Blue” and the kick ass “Play” with vocals by Sa Dingding.
“Be Like Water” is a marvel of tabla, drum and bass programming and keyboards and a solo endeavor by Mr. Kale. Equally delicious is the razor sharp edged “Shiva” with its fiery guitar lines, the sultry moody “Snowflake” with vocals by Ranjit Arupurakal and Papon and the delicately lovely closing track “Shyam” with vocalist Monali Thakur, bassist Tony Grey, electric guitarist Warren Mendonsa, bansuri player Ajay Prasanna with Mr. Kale taking up keyboards, bass and drum programming.
Exhilarating and captivating, Up is a headlong leap into the exotic and the ride down is delicious.
Buy Up in North America
Buy Up in Europe
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
