"KALAK" is Sarathy Korwar's new release

Percussionist serves up an Indo-futurist manifesto via sophisticated and intense rhythmic investigations. 

   After subverting immigration prejudice on 2019's More Arriving, a thought provok­ing fusion of jazz and vibrant Mumbai rap, Korwar retains its core instrumental personnel (Danalogue, Tamar Osborn, Al MacSween, Magnus Mehta) for his latest adventure. Where its predecessor was freighted with wordplay that refused to sugar-coat the reality of a migrant’s journey west (laid unsparingly bare on provocative closer Pravasis), the US-born, Indian-raised and London-based composer lets the music do the talking here (bar two spoken-word bookends and some pointed titles), deploying a circular rhythmic notation system, without strict starts or ends, to mirror South Asian notions of cyclicality.

Recorded live in less than two days and reconstructed from those improvisations, KALAK is a distinctive place where acoustic beats and ragged textures join hands with quivering otherworldly synths and group chants, at once steeped in the past and seeking out a brighter future. That dichotomy is played out in real time amid the hustling, bustling percussion of To Remember Begum Rokeya, Korwar evoking the Bengali feminist author’s literary groundbreaking via Mehta’s slow pulse, Osborn’s low flutes, MacSween/Danalogue gliding synths and evolving chants that highlight a sly way with a melody.

His subversive craft is much more overt on the all-out get-down of Utopia Is A Colonial Project, Osborn’s bouncy baritone sax tracing a steadfast hook over a ritualistic groove as Danalogue’s rave-ready, high-end electronics poke, prod and tease before finally running amok. Mystery and magic abound in a hypnotic squall of criss-crossing flutes and percussion on Kal Means Yesterday And Tomorrow, while Korwar fashions a bespoke tonal landscape via the dark battle cries of clattering bass drums on That Clocks Don’t Tell But Make Time. Elsewhere, the suspenseful rhythms of Back In The Day, Things Were Not Always Simpler pulse like angry snakes in a bag, the album’s clubbiest cut mirroring the trance inducing sequences of Shruti Dances, his recent collaboration with Auntie Flo.

Korwar has come a long way since 2016’s exploratory debut Day To Day — a somewhat niche but invigorating mix of field recordings of south India’s rural Siddi tribe with West African polyrhythms and ambient sonics —even making the time to re-chart spiritual jazz's totemic foundations on 2018's triple live LP My East Is Your Best with the Upaj Collective. Abetted by producer Photay’s sharp editing skills and tactile sound design, KALAK's wildly careening spirituals up the ante with missionary glee and emotional intelligence, Korwar tapping into the diversity of the Indian diaspora via some of his most captivating, immediate and inventive compositions to date. Not for the first time, he’s raised the bar.