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.