Now of course whole new frontiers have opened up so you can get variations on this theme based around music from Africa to Brazil and all points in between. The latest casualty appears to be the music of India.
In recent years, second generation immigrants from India to places like England and Canada have been experimenting with elements of Western pop music and incorporating them into traditional music from their homelands. Out of this amalgamation has emerged some pretty amazing music. Groups like Asian Dub Foundation have created a brand of Indian House music that combines all the best elements of Dub and the rhythms of traditional ragas.
Of course, there has been a long sporadic relationship with Indian music and the west dating back to the sixties when people like George Harrison began incorporating sitars into their songs on occasion. But it had never really caught the general public's imagination until recent years when Indian performers began the incorporation in reverse.
When I heard about the album Bombay Dub Orchestra I must admit that the word Dub led me to have preconceived notions of what I was going to hear when I put the disc in my player. My first indication that this was not going to be what I expected was upon hearing swirling synthesisers in the opening bars of the first track.
Bombay Dub Orchestra is the project of two composers and writers, Gary Hughes and Andrew T. Mackay. Recording in both London and Mumbai, they had access to some of the finest Indian musicians around, from sitar and tabla players to vocalists.
It is divided into two discs; original compositions on disc one, and then "Dub" versions on disc two. On opening the package I remember feeling quite excited by the photos of the array of musicians, it made me hopeful as to the content.
Unfortunately, I was to be sorely let down by the results. After listening to the first piece, I thought that perhaps they had developed a composition similar to orchestral music where themes are developed in an overture and then explored in subsequent movements. That would explain why the sounds of the sitar and tabla are buried under the wash of keyboards.
Article comments