Artist.......: Ananda Shankar
Album........: A Life in Music (Best Of The EMI Years)
Label........: Saregama
Genre........: Ethnic
Catnr........: 1506278
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Dec-11-2006
str.date.....: Feb-21-2006
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
cd1
01. Ananda Shankar - Jungle Symphony 03:39
02. Ananda Shankar - Dancing Drums 05:25
03. Ananda Shankar - Back Home 04:39
04. Ananda Shankar - The River 03:07
05. Ananda Shankar - The Alien 04:10
06. Ananda Shankar - Charging Tiger 04:11
07. Ananda Shankar - Streets of Calcutta 04:42
08. Ananda Shankar - Storm 05:21
09. Ananda Shankar - Renunciation 04:27
10. Ananda Shankar - Cyrus 02:45
11. Ananda Shankar - Missing You 04:05
cd2
01. Anada Shankar - Anjali 06:03
02. Anada Shankar - Radha 05:40
03. Anada Shankar - Celebration 04:35
04. Anada Shankar - Namaskar 05:18
05. Anada Shankar - Discovery of India 04:12
06. Anada Shankar - Night In The Forest 03:59
07. Anada Shankar - Universal Magic 04:10
08. Anada Shankar - Exploration 04:15
09. Anada Shankar - Gypsy 04:56
10. Anada Shankar - Indrasabha 06:16
11. Anada Shankar - Rajput Bride 05:44
Runtime 101:39 min
Size 145,10 MB
Release Notes:
To most of the West, Ananda Shankar is most
familiar for the records he made at the beginning
(1970's Ananda Shankar) and end (2000's Walking On)
of his recording career, which were the only ones
to gain relatively wide distribution outside India.
However, Shankar did continue to record fairly
often for EMI India in the interim. That period is
well represented by this overdue two-CD
compilation, which draws from seven of his Indian
albums between 1975 and 2000. On most of these
instrumental recordings, Shankar pursued what has
been generally, though pretty accurately,
classified as an East-West fusion of sorts, melding
sitar and traditional Indian music and instruments
with rock and funk arrangements and modern
recording technology. Often that's a recipe for
disaster, or at least cheesiness, but Shankar
usually managed to make it effective. On the
earlier tracks in particular, there's often a
lagging-behind-the-trends psychedelic funk feel,
with unpredictable but galvanizing shifts between
Indian-flavored melodies/rhythms, careening
synthesizers, wah-wah guitars, acid jazz organ,
dancing cinematic strings, and a quite
hard-charging solid rock-influenced beat. From a
21st century perspective, these sound at once dated
and futuristic, stuffed with quasi-psychedelicisms
that some would consider passΘ, yet run through a
blender in a way that has no obvious counterpart on
more familiar American and European recordings of
the period. Some other selections tilt more toward
the Indian "music overlaid with modern beats and
production" style, and are both more conventional
and less impressive. The best half or so of this
compilation, however, is quite dynamic, and makes a
case for Shankar as one of the ablest and most
balanced fusioneers of Western and Eastern forms.