SARATHY KORWAR - More Arriving
The Leaf Label BAY 112CD
Sarathy Korwar (drums, tabla, percussion); Chris Williams (alto sax); Tamar Osborn (baritone sax); Al MacSween (keyboards); Danalogue (keyboards); MC Mawali (voc); Mirande (voc); MC Prabh Deep (voc); Delhi Sultanate (voc); Zia Ahmed (voc); Aditya Prakash (voc); TRAP POJU (voc); Deepak Unnikrishnan (voc)
No recording information
Most of us listen to music for a variety of reasons: to lift us up or to bring us down; to make us think or to help us forget. Some of the music we listen to is challenging and this album is a good example of this. It’s not challenging in the sense that it’s difficult to listen to, but the themes Korwar explores are uncomfortable and challenge us to explore our attitude towards a raft of social issues – racism, migration, identity, disconnection and rejection. In the words of the album press release: it’s an honest reflection of Korwar’s experience of being an Indian in a divided Britain.
Korwar was born in the US, grew up in India and has lived in the UK for the past decade. He began playing tabla when he was 10, but was also drawn to the music of John Coltrane and Ahmad Jamal. He leads the UPAJ Collective, which brings together South Asian jazz and Indian classical musicians. This is Korwar’s second album (the first, Day To Day, was released in 2016). He spent three years producing More Arriving, and has collaborated with both British and Indian musicians including, the Marathi rapper MC Mawali; Jamaican-Indian rapper Delhi Sultanate; Indian classical singer Mirande; Indian hip-hop/rap artist TRAP POJU; Punjabi MC Prabh Deep; London-based poet Zia Ahmed and writer Deepak Unnikrishnan.
Korwar has another objective with this album – to change the perception of Indian music. As he told one interviewer: “I think over the last 30-40 years, we haven’t grown out of the idea of what Indian music looks and sounds like. For a lot of people; it’s about sitars and a very meditative, spiritual music. Hardly anyone thinks about hip-hop and India at the moment.” In another interview he observed: “So much of Indo-Jazz is about borrowing some out-of-tune sitar or badly played tabla – I had to change that.” He has a point, although I hope he’d agree that the Indo-jazz collaborations from musicians such as John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain and Trilok Gurtu do not fall into this category.
The physical versions and most digital versions of this album include the lyrics, and I would strongly recommend reading them while listening to the tracks featuring vocals, as it really does enhance your understanding of the music and its message.
The opening track, Mumbay (a portmanteau of the old colonial city name Bombay and its modern name Mumbai) begins with a heavy backbeat, followed by a horn riff that evokes the feeling of a busy, bustling city street. Snaking underneath it all is Tamar Osborn’s brooding baritone sax. Rapping in Hindi/Marathi, MC Mawali describes street life in the city: City of dreams/people in every house/ youth drifting through the streets, adding that: Mumbai or Bombay/It doesn’t matter to me/call it what you want/ you still live on the street. The 23-second track Jallad is a short slice of street life, with James Brown’s Sex Machine forming the musical backdrop.
The percussive, mid-tempo track Coolie tells the tale of indentured Indian labourers, who worked on the British plantations in Jamaica, a process described by V. S. Naipaul’s biographer Patrick French as: “Slavery with an expiry date.” Rapping in patois, Delhi Sultanate describes in both English and Punjabi how the Indian workers brought cannabis seeds to the West Indies, and how the drug trade has devastated societies: Politicians want a vote/performers want a note/kids doing coke/the public is ruined.
The nine-minute Bol starts with a catchy bass riff and handclaps before a harmonium and percussion enter, bringing a joyous feeling to the music. But sounds can be deceptive, because while the music sounds uplifting, the lyrics are dark, with Zia Ahmed describing what life is like for someone who doesn’t feel accepted by society.
It would have been very easy to simply launch into a diatribe against racism in British society, but Ahmed is more subtle, using sarcasm and humour to puncture the stereotypes of people from a South Asian background: I am slumdog millionaire, downward dog, eight headed god/I am Shiva, al-Qaeda, I am auditioning for the role of terrorist one…I am ganges, I am Gandhi, I am Jinnah, I am five pillars, I am sinner/ I am cinnamon, I am cardamom, I am not invited to the Houses of Parliament…/I am Eng-erland, I am England shirt made in Bangladesh. The track is interspersed Aditya Prakash’s soaring vocals in Hindi.
The song reaches a fiery climax at the coda, with Prakash’s vocals sounding more hurried and desperate, as Ahmed keeps repeating the phrase, Looking for a shape that’s whole/looking for a place that’s home, while Korwar’s explosive drumming, a harmonium and a baritone sax bring the song to a powerful conclusion. Ahmed is also on the next track, Mango, which describes the disconnection felt when someone is told to go back to where they came from – even if that place is north-west London. The song has some clever word play: Man go into a bar/and bar man go/why the long mango, but one line jars as it falls into the trap of hyperbole: Ahmed asks, Which racist do you want on your banknote?
Now, it’s true that some of the people on British banknotes have a dubious relationship with race (such as Churchill), but others don’t deserve to be lumped with them. Jane Austen, for example, disliked slavery and put this distaste into several of her novels, including Mansfield Park. The artist J.M.W Turner was so moved by an account he read about a slave voyage that it inspired him to paint Slave Ship. Turner even arranged for the painting to be unveiled at an anti-slavery conference attended by Prince Albert, with the hope that it might inspire the monarch to increase Britain’s anti-slavery efforts.
City of Words is a 12-minute atmospheric jazzy number, underpinned by a powerful bass riff and Korwar’s metronome-like rim shots. Chris Williams plays a series of plaintive lines on alto sax, and is joined by rapper TRAP POJU, and Mirande, who delivers some beautiful, mournful vocals. Mirande’s vocals also feature on the following track, Good Ol’ Vilayati, a mid-tempo track dominated by a tabla beat and a dream-like soundscape played on a synthesiser. The closing number, Pravasis (which means expatriate or emigrant in Indian English) is a short spoken monologue by Deepak Unnikrishnan (accompanied by a stringed instrument, possibly a guitar), who describes the various jobs often associated with migrants, including, tailor, chauffeur. maid, shopkeeper, truck driver, gardener, smuggler and hooker, as well as the never-ending cycle of migration. The monologue concludes: temporary people. illegal people, ephemeral people, gone people. Deported. Left. More Arriving.
If you think that More Arriving is simply a hectoring, depressing chronicle about racism in modern-day Britain, think again. Yes, it delves into many uncomfortable issues, but it is also an compelling blend of Indian, jazz and hip-hop music, that makes us think about ourselves, and others.
Reviewed by George Cole
The Leaf Label BAY 112CD
Sarathy Korwar (drums, tabla, percussion); Chris Williams (alto sax); Tamar Osborn (baritone sax); Al MacSween (keyboards); Danalogue (keyboards); MC Mawali (voc); Mirande (voc); MC Prabh Deep (voc); Delhi Sultanate (voc); Zia Ahmed (voc); Aditya Prakash (voc); TRAP POJU (voc); Deepak Unnikrishnan (voc)
No recording information
Most of us listen to music for a variety of reasons: to lift us up or to bring us down; to make us think or to help us forget. Some of the music we listen to is challenging and this album is a good example of this. It’s not challenging in the sense that it’s difficult to listen to, but the themes Korwar explores are uncomfortable and challenge us to explore our attitude towards a raft of social issues – racism, migration, identity, disconnection and rejection. In the words of the album press release: it’s an honest reflection of Korwar’s experience of being an Indian in a divided Britain.
Korwar was born in the US, grew up in India and has lived in the UK for the past decade. He began playing tabla when he was 10, but was also drawn to the music of John Coltrane and Ahmad Jamal. He leads the UPAJ Collective, which brings together South Asian jazz and Indian classical musicians. This is Korwar’s second album (the first, Day To Day, was released in 2016). He spent three years producing More Arriving, and has collaborated with both British and Indian musicians including, the Marathi rapper MC Mawali; Jamaican-Indian rapper Delhi Sultanate; Indian classical singer Mirande; Indian hip-hop/rap artist TRAP POJU; Punjabi MC Prabh Deep; London-based poet Zia Ahmed and writer Deepak Unnikrishnan.
Korwar has another objective with this album – to change the perception of Indian music. As he told one interviewer: “I think over the last 30-40 years, we haven’t grown out of the idea of what Indian music looks and sounds like. For a lot of people; it’s about sitars and a very meditative, spiritual music. Hardly anyone thinks about hip-hop and India at the moment.” In another interview he observed: “So much of Indo-Jazz is about borrowing some out-of-tune sitar or badly played tabla – I had to change that.” He has a point, although I hope he’d agree that the Indo-jazz collaborations from musicians such as John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain and Trilok Gurtu do not fall into this category.
The physical versions and most digital versions of this album include the lyrics, and I would strongly recommend reading them while listening to the tracks featuring vocals, as it really does enhance your understanding of the music and its message.
The opening track, Mumbay (a portmanteau of the old colonial city name Bombay and its modern name Mumbai) begins with a heavy backbeat, followed by a horn riff that evokes the feeling of a busy, bustling city street. Snaking underneath it all is Tamar Osborn’s brooding baritone sax. Rapping in Hindi/Marathi, MC Mawali describes street life in the city: City of dreams/people in every house/ youth drifting through the streets, adding that: Mumbai or Bombay/It doesn’t matter to me/call it what you want/ you still live on the street. The 23-second track Jallad is a short slice of street life, with James Brown’s Sex Machine forming the musical backdrop.
The percussive, mid-tempo track Coolie tells the tale of indentured Indian labourers, who worked on the British plantations in Jamaica, a process described by V. S. Naipaul’s biographer Patrick French as: “Slavery with an expiry date.” Rapping in patois, Delhi Sultanate describes in both English and Punjabi how the Indian workers brought cannabis seeds to the West Indies, and how the drug trade has devastated societies: Politicians want a vote/performers want a note/kids doing coke/the public is ruined.
The nine-minute Bol starts with a catchy bass riff and handclaps before a harmonium and percussion enter, bringing a joyous feeling to the music. But sounds can be deceptive, because while the music sounds uplifting, the lyrics are dark, with Zia Ahmed describing what life is like for someone who doesn’t feel accepted by society.
It would have been very easy to simply launch into a diatribe against racism in British society, but Ahmed is more subtle, using sarcasm and humour to puncture the stereotypes of people from a South Asian background: I am slumdog millionaire, downward dog, eight headed god/I am Shiva, al-Qaeda, I am auditioning for the role of terrorist one…I am ganges, I am Gandhi, I am Jinnah, I am five pillars, I am sinner/ I am cinnamon, I am cardamom, I am not invited to the Houses of Parliament…/I am Eng-erland, I am England shirt made in Bangladesh. The track is interspersed Aditya Prakash’s soaring vocals in Hindi.
The song reaches a fiery climax at the coda, with Prakash’s vocals sounding more hurried and desperate, as Ahmed keeps repeating the phrase, Looking for a shape that’s whole/looking for a place that’s home, while Korwar’s explosive drumming, a harmonium and a baritone sax bring the song to a powerful conclusion. Ahmed is also on the next track, Mango, which describes the disconnection felt when someone is told to go back to where they came from – even if that place is north-west London. The song has some clever word play: Man go into a bar/and bar man go/why the long mango, but one line jars as it falls into the trap of hyperbole: Ahmed asks, Which racist do you want on your banknote?
Now, it’s true that some of the people on British banknotes have a dubious relationship with race (such as Churchill), but others don’t deserve to be lumped with them. Jane Austen, for example, disliked slavery and put this distaste into several of her novels, including Mansfield Park. The artist J.M.W Turner was so moved by an account he read about a slave voyage that it inspired him to paint Slave Ship. Turner even arranged for the painting to be unveiled at an anti-slavery conference attended by Prince Albert, with the hope that it might inspire the monarch to increase Britain’s anti-slavery efforts.
City of Words is a 12-minute atmospheric jazzy number, underpinned by a powerful bass riff and Korwar’s metronome-like rim shots. Chris Williams plays a series of plaintive lines on alto sax, and is joined by rapper TRAP POJU, and Mirande, who delivers some beautiful, mournful vocals. Mirande’s vocals also feature on the following track, Good Ol’ Vilayati, a mid-tempo track dominated by a tabla beat and a dream-like soundscape played on a synthesiser. The closing number, Pravasis (which means expatriate or emigrant in Indian English) is a short spoken monologue by Deepak Unnikrishnan (accompanied by a stringed instrument, possibly a guitar), who describes the various jobs often associated with migrants, including, tailor, chauffeur. maid, shopkeeper, truck driver, gardener, smuggler and hooker, as well as the never-ending cycle of migration. The monologue concludes: temporary people. illegal people, ephemeral people, gone people. Deported. Left. More Arriving.
If you think that More Arriving is simply a hectoring, depressing chronicle about racism in modern-day Britain, think again. Yes, it delves into many uncomfortable issues, but it is also an compelling blend of Indian, jazz and hip-hop music, that makes us think about ourselves, and others.
Reviewed by George Cole
