NEW! THE LONG AWAITED DOUBLE CD WITH 40 PAGE BOOKLET: over 138 minutes playing time
 
The past, present and future of intercultural collaboration featuring 13 of the greatest artists from India, Bangladesh and Europe
 
Double album featuring:
Simon Thacker (classical guitar), Raju Das Baul (voice, khomok), Sunayana Ghosh (tabla), K.V. Gopalakrishnan (kanjira), N. Guruprasad (ghatam), Justyna Jablonska (cello), Japjit Kaur (voice), Afsana Khan (voice), Sarvar Sabri (tabla), Jacqueline Shave (violin), Sukhvinder Singh “Pinky” (tabla), Neyveli B. Venkatesh (mridangam), Farida Yesmin (voice)
 
Created and recorded over three years, in three locations (East Lothian in Scotland, and Chennai and Kolkata in India), Simon Thacker’s third release creating new sound worlds through his immersion in Indian classical, folk and spiritual traditions is Trikala (the Sanskrit word for the three tenses of time, past present and future).
 
Trikala sees Simon Thacker’s Svara-Kanti metamorphose into a community of different lineups (thirteen performers in all) which each focus on innovating on four different aspects of the vast musical macrocosm that exists on the Indian subcontinent: Hindustani classical (north), Carnatic classical (south), Punjabi folk (west) and the Bengali mystical folk Baul tradition of both India and Bangladesh (east). There is also a major solo work with a tangential Tamil inspiration, one of Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore’s best loved melodies reimagined and finally a moving transformation of India’s “National Song”.
 
Unity comes from Thacker, as the single compositional voice that has either created or recreated all of the work on both albums and the symbiotic relationship between the performers who, whether in the most breathtakingly intricate composition or ferocious and intuitive improvisation, search for truth and essence selflessly together. This all adds up to a work of rapturous forward momentum and a pivotal moment in the history of Indo-Western collaboration.