India - the greatest songs ever

Home to over one billion cow-loving folks, India is not the best place to order Steak Diane.

But when it’s not playing havoc with delicate Western stomachs, India produces some of the world’s most entrancing music. India’s musical heritage has long inspired and been shamelessly pilfered by the likes of The Beatles and Madonna. India The Greatest Songs Ever reverses this outflow of talent, borrowing Western club beats to transform the traditional musical styles of India into late night prayers for disco trash like you and me. India The Greatest Songs Ever serves an aural feast of richly flavoured sounds and textures, coating your listening palate with a heady, intoxicating taste. It’s a musical masala of sounds ranging from the spiraling vocals of Qawwali, the devotional music of Sufism, to the pulsating beat of tabla and dhol percussion. Forget the greasy tasteless offerings of fast food Western musos. Like a fiery vindaloo, India The Greatest Songs Ever assaults your senses, mixing pleasure with pain, leaving you gasping for water but wanting to taste more. Fun Da Mental’s “Ja Sha Taan” draws upon Qawwali’s rich vein of poetic imagery to deliver an ecstatic call of devotion infused by a pulsating electro-beat. As exhilarating as a Sufi dervish dancer, “Ja Sha Taan” quickens the pulse like a two hour of session of Bikram yoga or a trek up a Himalayan mountain. Lithe, yoga-stretched limbs are needed to keep pace with the energetic bhangra of Saqi’s “Sir Dukh Da”. Fusing folk bhangra with funkified-pop, Saqi cooks-up a tasty aural treat from the most unlikely of ingredients. Renowned Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan brings his beautiful, subtle harmonies on “Tere Bin Nai Lagda”. As produced by UK club producers Partners in Crime, this Qawwali song of devotion becomes an electro-ballad to put Celine Dion to shame. Elsewhere, Bollywood’s finest songstress Lata Mangeshkar out divas the fattest of opera stars as she pins for lost souls on “Ae-Dil-E-Nadan”. Kumar Sanu also gets choked up and overwhelmed by love on “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha”, making tragic star-crossed lovers as sexy as a tight mini-skirt worn on svelte disco hips. India The Greatest Songs Ever samples the vast array of Indian musical tastes, satisfying the most sensitive of disco tummies without the risk of angina or a vicious bout of diarrhea. If only the same could be for the late-night Indian takeaways catering to clubbers that line Oxford Street. Source~Petrol Records.
The greatest Songs Ever' is a fairly broad statement, and not a very exacting one. Having said that, it is one of my favourite collections from the recent past. I play it a lot when we have a gathering of the clans- to share food and merriment. Some other reviews I have read on this collection, have actually made disparaging remarks with regards to track 9. Palmistry - Tabla Beat Science ( Bill Laswell, Zakir Hussain) As a lover of the tabla and a fan of Zakir Hussain- I found the comments jarring...but yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, music to the ear. Decide for your self.

Track list 01 Ja Sha Taan - Fun Da Mental 02 Sir Dukh Da - Saqi 03 Tere Bin Nai Lagda - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 04 Mera Jee Karda - Sukhwinder Singh 05 Shaam Aye - TJ Rehmi 06 Ae-Dil-E-Nadan - Lata Mangeshkar 07 Jiji Rhy - Taufiq 08 Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Kumar Sanu 09 Palmistry - Tabla beat Science 10 Sunoh - Lucky Ali 11 Kuch Kone Kho Dil - Asha Boshle 12 Dhola Re Dhola - Kavita Krishnamurthy CBR 320 mp3 l 135 mbs l Front and Rear Scans Download part 1 Download part 2