This Moment (Abstract Logix)
Shakti
Released June 23, 2023
Jazzwise Top 10 Albums of the Year 2023
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About:
As a cornerstone of what is now called World Music, the vision and virtuosity of Shakti has inspired generations of musicians from around the world to explore sonic hybrids once thought impossible. Born of the musical and spiritual brotherhood shared by the revolutionary British guitarist and bandleader John McLaughlin and master Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain, Shakti’s soulful, organic intermingling of Eastern and Western musical traditions has proven transformative for both the band’s members and its listeners.
Fifty years after the informal conversations and jam sessions that sparked the band into existence, their music continues to resonate and evolve. This Moment – Shakti’s first new studio album in more than 45 years, will be released on CD and vinyl LP via Abstract Logix on June 30, 2023. A work of immense depth and radiant optimism, This Moment offers a set of new compositions and performances that burn with a rare intensity born out of passion. With McLaughlin (guitar, guitar synth) and Hussain (tabla) joined by vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram, the Shakti of now is a powerfully dynamic collective, defined by deft interplay, dazzling unison passages, extraordinarily dexterous improvisations, and the ability to draw from a vast well of global traditions and, miraculously, put them in conversation with one another.
Despite the large gap in their studio discography, Shakti has persisted intermittently over the years as a live proposition, releasing several concert recordings. “Shakti is very much a ‘live’ band,” explains McLaughlin. “A part of the problem with making a studio recording has always been the fact that we live on different continents, and we all follow our individual careers – in addition to working together in Shakti. This Moment is the result of me calling everyone in the fall of 2021 and persuading them to use today’s recording technology to realize it.” Recorded and mixed in the U.S., Monaco, India, and Great Britain, This Moment is nevertheless cohesive, bound by the deeply held bond shared by the players – a bond that is audibly apparent across the album’s eight tracks.
The compositions making up This Moment each pass through a series of connected movements, highlighting different vocal and instrumental sub-groups within Shakti while transitioning between taut thematic statements, riveting solos from McLaughlin and Rajagopalan, invigorating rhythmic shifts, and soaring vocal passages by Mahadevan. The increased use of vocals – both sung and konokol (a Southern Indian tradition of spoken percussion) – gives today’s Shakti a new degree of warmth, humanity, and universality. McLaughlin’s contributions are remarkable in their ability to reconcile the great Ragas of North and South India with a chromaticism born of jazz and the blues, and the speed and precision of his articulation remains exhilarating. The engine room of Hussain and Vinayakram (son of original Shakti ghatam player T.H. “Vikku” Vinayakram) gives space to allow passages to breathe and resound, while equally capable of fomenting a roiling, galloping underpinning that push the soloists to increasingly ecstatic heights.
For founders McLaughlin and Hussain, Shakti’s astonishing longevity – along with a legacy that has affected musicians and audiences around the world – is met with humility and gratitude. But while recognizing the group’s past achievements, Shakti continues to evolve, as demonstrated so compellingly on This Moment. “You could say that we have returned to elements of an older Shakti sound by bringing back the violin,” reflects Hussain. “In some ways it completes the circle. But the musical mindset that the artists in the group bring to the table reveals many layers of creative thought that we in our initial incarnation did not have the time nor the means to explore. And now, the decades of individual music experiences we all have had poured into this gathering’s offering has resulted in an extraordinary depth to the sound and interaction of this band.”
“I have been working and playing with Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain for 50 years, and with Shankar Mahadevan for 20 years,” McLaughlin concludes. “I can say categorically that their influence on me as a musician and human being is without equal. It’s really a thrill, and I’m delighted to be part of this marvelous tradition of the Shakti group.”
Track Listing:
1. Shrini’s Dream (Zakir Hussain / Shankar Mahadevan / Selvaganesh Vinayakram / John McLaughlin) 6:31
2. Bending the Rules (Shankar Mahadevan) 7:11
3. Karuna (John McLaughlin) 8:33
4. Mohanam (Selvaganesh Vinayakram) 6:01
5. Giriraj Sudha (Carnatic Traditional / U. Shrinivas / Shankar Mahadevan) 10:38
6. Las Palmas (John McLaughlin) 4:11
7. Changay Naino (Zakir Hussain) 6:08
8. Sono Mama (John McLaughlin) 7:48
Personnel:
John McLaughlin: guitar, guitar synth
Zakir Hussain: tabla, konokol
Shankar Mahadevan: vocals & konokol
Ganesh Rajagopalan: violin, konokol
Selvaganesh Vinayakram: kanjira, mridangam, ghatam, konokol
Recorded at Mediastarz Studio Monaco by Jean-Michel Aublette
Recorded at Swara Yoga Studios Covington, WA, USA and Offbeat Music Ventures, Chennai by Aditya Srinivasan
Recorded at Lambodara Studios, Navi Mumbai by Ameya Mategaonkar
Mixed by George Murphy
Mastering by Andrew Tulloch
Produced by John McLaughlin
Co-Produced by Selvaganesh Vinayakram
Executive Producers: Shweta & Souvik Dutta
Album Artwork by Mrinalini Sen, Orku Basu, Urmi Bhanja
Photography by Pepe Gomes
Review:
Two years in the making, and 22 years since their last album, Saturday Night In Bombay, Shakti’s latest album, This Moment, is their finest achievement yet. It is also quite different to any of the Shakti and Remember Shakti albums that preceded it. It marks the successful integration of Shankar Mahadevan’s voice within the ensemble, brings Konokol [essentially the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian Carnatic music] forward as a central element of their performance, introduces atmospheric guitar synth washes and features some stunning guitar and guitar synth playing by John McLaughlin. For the avoidance of doubt, stunning’ in this context is not mere hyperbole, but as in the dictionary definition of the word, “extremely impressive”.
If you are not familiar with the concept of Konokol, then you will discover exactly what it is all about after getting into this remarkable album, played with such a high degree of musicianship it seems beyond the realm of mere mortals. Mahadevan, whose day job is singer and composer and one third of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio that writes music for Indian films (they have done some 50 or 60 films), has, by any standards, a remarkable voice, something endorsed by his countrymen: he has sold some 50 million records.
On this album his voice soars and flies in a way that is totally mesmerising. Together with McLaughlin’s guitar and guitar synth and Ganesh Rajagopalan’s violin, the trio are the central voices that make this an album both of extraordinary beauty and endearing complexity. McLaughlin’s western heritage shows him integrating the well-tempered scale and the harmonies that flow from it into to the harmony implied by raga, and at one point even weaving a couple of mischievous blue notes into the flow, while Mahadevan’s voice, steeped in the complexities of Konokol, goes beyond anything heard before in jazz, with moments that can only be described as ‘high-tech scat’. This is my Album of the Year, since it is one of the finest albums of the last quarter-century.
Stuart Nicholson (Jazzwise)
