[music] Talvin Singh, OK (1998)

Island Records
Total Running Time - 60:42

Personnel
Talvin Singh - Tablas, Drums, Keys, Programming, Tapes, Piano, Percussion, Gongs, Atmospherics, Voice, Tabla Tarang, Noises and Scratches; Cleveland Watkiss, Shankar Mahadevan, Bhairvi, Ajay Naidu, Suchitra Pillai - Voice; Vaijanthi-Limaye Sumati Antrolikat Purinama Shah, Archana, Arpaha, Karti Jyotsina Hardikar B Vijayalakshumi - Choir; Ustad Sultan Khan - Sarangi; Madhukar T Dhumal - Shenai; Madras Philharmonic Orchestra - Strings; Chandrashekar - Electric Violin; Chintoo Singh - Rabab; Byron Wallace - Trumpet; Devi - Veena; Jon Klein, Aziz Abrahim - Guitar; Dhiren Raichura - MIDI Guitar; Bill Laswell - Bass; Guy Sigsworth - Keys, Distortions; Heat China - Sanshin; Rakesh Curasia - Flute; Naveen - Flute, Pipes; Ryuichi Sakamoto - Modular Flute; Somatik - Additional Breaks; Tristin Norwell - Arrangement Edits

1. Traveller
2. Butterfly
3. Sutrix
4. Mombasstic
5. Decca
6. Eclipse
7. OK
8. Light
9. Disser/Point. Mento.B
10. Soni
11. Vikram the Vampire

In retrospect, it should have been more obvious that drums and bass would integrate almost seamlessly with tradition Indian music. The skittering beats of the former are strikingly similar to the the subtle rhythmic shadings of the latter. And Talvin Singh, a young Indian musician from London, has thrown them together into a beautifully textured collage on his debut solo disk. Singh is creating a new sound that, to my ears, moves beyond both styles of music in which it is rooted

OK is all about atmosphere, from the opening expansiveness of warm synthesizer pads, through dizzying tabla performances, to choirs of female voices. The different textures add some variety to the tracks, as it would be very easy for everything to just fade into the background. To a degree, though, it does just that. To this day, I would be hard pressed to name two songs on the album, but that doesn't take away from the overall experience. There's a fine line between monotony and cohesiveness, and this effort falls clearly towards cohesion.

Singh has clearly found a voice here as a solo artist, after numerous sideman gigs (including one with Madonna) and production work with other artists in the U.K.'s Asian underground. Of course, as a young solo artist, he is also prone to ill-advised self-indulgence, like the ridiculous intro of "Decca." These missteps are relatively rare, however, and don't take away from the luminescence of an artist who could very well have a profound impact on the development of electronica. It just took centuries-old musical tradition to do it.