A Drop Of The Ocean

Sultan Khan & Krishna Das

An interesting collaboration between Sultan Khan, the undisputed master of the sarangi (a bit of a dying instrument in itself due to the difficulty and pain involved in playing it) and Jeffrey Kagel, aka Krishna Das, a leader in updating chant accompaniment, among other things. It would seem at first glance that a master of accompaniment would work well with a sarangi player (itself often an accompanying instrument), but at the same time there's the potential for no lead to be taken whatsoever. During portions of the album, this is exactly what seems to be the case, as Khan can play out a beautiful bit of backing material alongside some electronics, neither of which take the forefront. For the majority of the album though, there is a definite focus. Khan gets the opportunity to take extended journeys on solo sarangi with great mastery displayed throughout. In other sections, the two take turns singing and chanting, often accompanied softly by guitarist (and incidentally composer of Midnight at the Oasis) David Nichtern. The end result of this is a very ambient sort of album, with a lot of exceptional sarangi to be heard.