Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Pramod Kumar - The Indian Sitar: The Language of the Raga (1973)


A collection of ragas that somehow, despite the current state of the world, might help you to find your center. Goddamn, I wish my country's traditional music was beautiful, kaleidoscopic, slow-burning drone music, instead of a bunch of hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows or some shit.

Track listing:
1. Raga Purya Kalyan
2. Shudh Sarang
3. Thumree Sindhi Bhairavi
4. Dhun

The sky remains the same as ever

You will also enjoy:
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar -
Grands Maitres de la Rudra-Veena (1987)
Robert Rich & Lisa Moskow -
Yearning (1995)

8 comments:

  1. "Clusterfuck about milking cows..." haha-
    Thanks for the laugh. I hear ya, I love the sitar and classical Indian music. It's so beautiful and meaningful.
    Thanks for turning me onto another sitar player.

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  2. Thanks, I could use some transcendence right about now!

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  3. There is something quite beautiful in the sound of the Sitar. The way you can hear the looseness of the strings and how some of the notes are bent. This album is a great addition to my still very small Indian collection so thank you :)

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  4. Definitely a fair point. And I do love plenty of country and folk music, but aside from subversive musicians like John Fahey and the like, none of it has had that ethereal, conversing-with-the-divine feel that is so appealing to me about sitar music. I haven't listened to any Appalachian banjo music, though, and I prob should.

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  5. snip ".. instead of a bunch of hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows or some shit....."

    Try living here in Nashville................

    Every goddam person I have befriended here eventually reveals that they are closeted bluegrass, singer-songwriter and jam band cultists.

    Oh, and half of my friends who are 20 or more years younger than I are getting moist wishing they could go see U2 at Bonaroo. WTF?

    All the best - thanks for this.

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  6. Greeting Alan, welcome back to blogland...I have only just realised that you are up and running again. Great to see.
    I came to this via the recent Hamza El Din 'Eclipse' post. Which then led me to try for the two 'You will enjoy' selections listed:

    Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Grands Maitres de la Rudra-Veena
    Robert Rich & Lisa Moskow - Yearning

    Zippy links for both are down. So this is a roundabout way of asking if you might be able to re-up those? That would be champion.

    Thanks as always for the terrific musical journey.
    PB

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    1. Both are re-upped, enjoy! Not sure where you got the idea that my name is Alan tho, because it definitely isn't :) Unless this is some joke that I'm missing/forgetting.

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  7. Sincere apologies DS - the error came getting my blogs mixed up in a moment of senility!
    Thanks for these - much appreciated. They are on the playlist for the weekend!
    PB

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