Gig review/ Perfect Amalgamation - Indo-fusion

By Narendra Kusnur

Concert: Perfect Amalgamation
Artistes: Siddharth Kasyap
Genre: Fusion, new age
Details: St Andrews auditorium, Bandra, August 2
Rating: *****

The St Andrews Auditorium, Bandra, was packed on Friday night, and the applause kept ringing at regular intervals. The Perfect Amalgamation concert, conceived by Siddharth Kasyap, fulfilled its promise of being a fusion show with difference.

There was a wide assortment of musical instruments, from the sitar, flute, violin and sarangi to keyboards, oud, guitar and drums, as 13 musicians dazzled on stage. The 90-minute journey was orchestrated and arranged by keyboardist Atul Raninga. Composed by Kasyap, the eight pieces were structured, and unlike most fusion concerts today, there was no jamming or unwanted gimmickry.

It wasn’t the music alone that left a mark. The whole show was marvellously produced, with appropriate lighting and amazing animation visuals. Barring a bit of sound feedback on the opening piece and a small technical glitch before the sarangi was introduced, everything was perfectly amalgamated.

Many of the performers were relatively unknown among the masses. Barring sitar exponent Ravi Chary, most artistes have been more acknowledged for their studio work, that too within the musician community.

Each track was a gem. Though each piece focused on specific instruments, the way everyone blended on stage was remarkable. Chary shone on the opener  ‘Mystical Sitar’, which used the raagmala concept. Violinist Kusumita KC, who hails from Kalimpong, Darjeeling, was a delight on ‘Strings On Fire’, which also had cameos by guitarists Vinnie Hutton and Prabhat Raghuvansi, and bassist Aakashdeep Gogoi.

By this time, the audience was fully charged up. Veteran musician Jayanti Gosher played the Arabic instrument  oud on the Middle Eastern-flavoured ‘Oud Taksim’. Through the show, he also showed his adeptness at the mandolin, rabab and banjo.

From one desert to another, we moved to ‘Floating Wind’ in raag Maand, where Vinchurkar presented a Rajasthani flavour. The 19-year-old Momin Khan, who hails from Jaipur, was the star of ‘Mellifluous Sarangi’.

The next two pieces were a treat for rhythm buffs. On ‘The Ensemble’, drummer Chiranjit Sinha and percussionists Girish Vishwa and Gautam Sharma did not use their sticks or hands. All they did was a volley of mouth percussion, in an exchange set to a 11-beat cycle and rendered against the backdrop of melodies played in raag Saraswati, and visuals that mentioned the bols.

The drummers got back to their instruments on the energetic ‘Rhythm Royale’. The programme concluded with ‘The Concerto’, where each musician played individual solos against an infectious melody line.

Clearly, this was fusion at its creative best, and kudos goes to Kasyap and Raninga, who both played keyboards, for leading this effort. One didn’t see the names of any corporate sponsor, and all one got was pure wizardry. Perfect Amalgamation simply proved that there is so much of talent in the field, and one needn’t be a star name to entice the audience. One only wishes there were more musicians in the hall to experience the magic.