Tabla Beat Science- Tala Matrix

There was a time in the late 20th century and the early part of the 21st when some kick-ass electronic music was being made by second generation Indians living in England. Away from the overkill of generic trance, the new sound of "Asian Underground" was like a breath of fresh air. Just like the air you inhale after you exit a stuffy and cheap movie theatre. Artist like Talvin Singh, Asian Dub Foundation, State of Bengal were all musician par excellence.

That was also the time when some supreme masters of Indian classical music in conjunction with modern electronic artists constructed an outfit called 'Tabla Beat Science' - Zakhir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu and Sultan Khan along with Talvin Singh and Karsh Kale under the supervision of Bill Laswell. When you have such a team, you expect genius. And 'Tala Matrix' is a piece of work. "Hypercussion", true to what the cover says.

Luckily for me, when this album was released, it was the peak of file sharing era (It was also the era of dial-ups and the average song size on this CD is about 7-8 mb). However, with time this album was relegated to some obscure corner of my CD rack.

Now this album has made a killer comeback. Last week I bought the original copy of this album along with the equally brilliant "Tabla Beat Science: Live at The Stern Grove", buy one get one offer at Planet M. I have been playing this album non- stop. And I believe "Tala Matrix" has never sounded so good.

Indie (and general) music coverage in Hindustan Times

The supplement in the Bombay edition of Hindustan Times every Tuesday has one page dedicated to music. The page generally consists of articles taken from various foreign newspapers along with some written by in house journalists like Hazra. And the good part is that whoever selects (guess that is Inderjeet Hazra) the articles thinks a bit differently. A bit away from the mainstream.

Over the period of six months I have read write ups on artists like Mars Volta, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kanye West, David Gray, Kings of Leon, Artic Monkeys to name a few. These artists are pretty big abroad, but are relatively lesser known here in India.

It is always good when people with good musical taste and awareness work for national newspapers.