Water Lily Acoustics
WLA-ES24
distributor website



Water Lily Acoustics
WLA-ES51
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Water Lily Acoustics
WLA-AS11
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Water Lily Acoustics
WLA-CS464
distributor website



Water Lily Acoustics
WLA-CS49
distributor website


Which to pick if you could only have one? Our own John Potis recently answered that questions for himself as it pertained to tube amplifiers - he purchased the Art Audio Carissa to now consider the subject closed. Today's quintet of Water Lily releases begged the same question. Iconoclastic label maestro Kavi Alexander's purist mike recipe of juxtaposing famous performers from diverse cultural backgrounds for impromptu jam sessions on a Persian carpet inside Christ the King Chapel of the St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara tends to net hit'n'miss results. That's simply a function of the sum of the parts exceeding the individual ingredients or not, due to the inherent East/West tension of temporary ensembles he's fond of creating. It provokes either a clash of non-synergistic styles; a successful while simplified encounter that establishes common ground by focusing on shared basics; or, if everything comes together just so, a truly inspired marriage of diversity that transcends awkwardness and overlap limitations by spontaneously birthing a ravishingly new and unexpectedly cogent musical syntax.


Granted, two of these albums are solo efforts - Hamza El Din's oud/vocals/tar journey into the Nubian past, and L. Subramaniam's Karnatic raga improvisations on Indian violin accompanied by tambura and mridangam/ghatam. Still, considering average rather than unhinged exploratory tastes, which would appeal to a larger audience of listeners not deeply entrenched in the borderless wilderness of experimental world music?


The hands-down winner continuing Kavi's streak of hits as epitomized by the famous Ry Cooder/ V.M. Bhatt A Meeting by the River [WLA CS-29] and L. Subramaniam/Larry Coryell From the Ashes meets [WLA-CS-59] is the duet of Simon Shaheen's Arabian oud/violin and Vishwas Mohan Bhatt's Indian lap top guitar called mohan vina, accompanied on select movements by Ronu Majumdar on bansuri Indian transverse flute and Sangeeta Shankar on Karnatic violin.


The reason for the aural veracity of this unusual duet becomes obvious once you consider that both Indian rag and Arabian maqam are based on similar modal constructs of improvisation. By establishing tonal anchors and secondary 'mood fulcrums' in their respective 62 and 17-24 half and quarter tone scales occupying a single octave, these systems embed strict rules of employ for those trained in these ancient arts, thus giving the 'opponents' -- Saltanah meaning dominion, sharing the same root as sultan, governor/ruler -- a clear road map to operate within. Like Phrygian and Aeolic scales which, by sharpening or flattening certain intervals, sometimes differ whether used ascending or descending, these rag/maqam conventions fix which notes may be used, which are primary, secondary and tertiary, and which ones may be altered for embellishments and emotive accents.


Agreeing in advance on a melodic seed which to unfold and elaborate on in subsequent improv thus sets all the vital parameters to establish common ground, whether the performers speak each other's language or not.


What transpires thereafter involves exploration of the possibilities inherent in what is framed by these agreements, to introduce the eventual melody, deconstruct it down into basic constituents, reassemble those in various patterns before the melody returns again, victorious, unscathed, but strengthened by this intermediate process of mutation, of branching off into side tendrils and unexpected while short-lived blossoms. The deeper rags, theoretically not unlike Free Jazz, veer yet farther into deconstructionist terrain. Yet, they never violate the rules and conventions inherent in their scale system. Some are simply more complex, evolved and difficult than others, making them into more abstract, higher mental art. A distinctive feature from Western parallels is the general absence of harmonic structure outside the rag's key tones, and, on this recording, the complete avoidance of a rhythm section. It has the soloists engage in flights of interpretive fancy that aren't tethered to fixed meters but rather, claim unbounded space as their domain.


Trading evocative lyricism and good-natured competitive jousts of inventive cleverness, serpentine trans-chromatic modulations and boundless technical skill, the team of Shaheen and Bhatt is not only perfectly matched but the timbres of their instruments are truly complementary. The five tunes are sequenced to suggest the passing of a single day, from dawn to dusk, with a popular ghazal, a more virtuoso center piece and transitional twilight rag separating the opening Kirwani from the closing Bhairavi which here corresponds with maqam Kurd. Anyone interested in contemplative Classical music from the Middle and Far East needs to earmark Saltanah as an eventual must-own. The minimalist mastering efforts lavished on this and all other Water Lily releases is further incentive only to those who insist on audiophile perks over musical and interpretative substance. Though sometimes, you can have it all - on one disc. Which, out of this bunch, makes this The One.