Nilam

About

The Tamil Nadu singer Ganavya Doraiswamy’s mix of spiritual jazz and South Asian classical music has already drawn collaborators as disparate as Quincy Jones, the dance/electronic producer Floating Points, and indie-jazz bandleader Esperanza Spalding—a testament both to her reach and just how fluidly she evades genre. Recorded with bassist Max Ridley and harpist Charles Overton and co-produced by the ambient-ish/neoclassical artist Nils Frahm, <i>Nilam</i> (taken from the Tamil word for “land”) is one of those albums that feels both breathy and sophisticated but quietly intense, a new iteration of the ’80s and ’90s “crossover” albums of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or the devotional music of Alice Coltrane. The big one is the nearly 10-minute chant of “Nine Jeweled Prayer” (featuring her parents Ganesan Doraiswamy and Vidya Doraiswamy), but, in a way, the album’s calling cards are “Not a Burden” and “Sees Fire,” both of which pack a retreat’s worth of religious intensity into the length of a pop song.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →