ANANDA SHANKAR Vinyl & CDs

Review: The candidly titled Ananda Shankar And His Music hears its first official reissue via Mr Bongo. Released on His Master's Voice in 1976, the album is a sublime collage of sitar-funk, traditional Indian classical music and psychedelic grooves, from the Indian sitarist, composer and musician. Nephew to India's legendary sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, Ananda's musical family and upbringing led to a deep respect and love of the wealth of music that emanated from his birthplace of Almora, North India. However, touring America in his 20s revealed a latent love for psychedelic rock, and this debut LP captures that obsession to a T. The fusion of cyclic, North Indian tala with Americana music is best heard on the likes of 'The Lonely Rider', which envisages the a sonorous Sonoran Desert set against an action-sequenced sitar and guitar strumming. 'Back Home' achieves similar results, with a Western, soul balladic walking bass mixing effortlessly with the sitar's distinctive, tweeting "bendre" - an exotic but compelling combo.

Review: Famous as the nephew of the world famous sitarist Ravi Shankar, Ananda Shankar carried the torch by contributing several greats to the continuing tide of prog rock and Western electronica. One such project was Sa-Re-Ga Machan, first released in 1981, and which lent a jungle-safari theme to the already established electronic rock fusions he'd laid down on his earlier self-titled record. Seguing through rollicking, schools-out psychedelic odysseys, not to mention humid, wonderfully sublime tropical soundscapes on which we can't tell what's synthetic and what isn't, this is an worthy new reissue from Life Goes On; worth every penny.