Alba Santos, Anurag Naidu & others/ Odyssey

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR

Alba Santos, Anurag Naidu, Aniel Someillan & Isaias Alves/ Odyssey 

Label: Various

Rating: ****

This album has an interesting tale behind it. Four musicians from different countries got together in Sri Lanka just before the Pandemic, and began working on a project together.

Odyssey was an intensive, exciting experience that lasted only six days, including conceptualisng, composing, arranging and recording the songs. Using their personal influences and diverse styles, and without any pre-conceived plans, Spanish vocalist Alba Santos, Indian pianist Anurag Naidu, Cuban bassist Aniel Someillan and Brazilian drummer-percussionist Isaias Alves created eight songs.

The result is a heady blend of sounds, which could be broadly classified under the world music category, with a good sprinkling of jazz, rhythm n' blues, lounge, flamenco, Latin American sounds, funk. new age and neo-soul.

Vocalist Alba and pianist Anurag combine effectively on the melodies, and are backed by supple bass-lines and smartly-structured rhythms. The songs are in Portuguese or English, with a few just using scat syllables.

The eight-minute opener 'Afrofrenia' has a melodic vocal stretch, a smooth piano and sudden time changes, leading to a lengthy climax where a repeated vocal line is backed by improvisation by the other three. 

'Maya' has English lyrics, and an uptempo start, followed by hook-filled chants. It moves straight into the mellow vocal lines and soft piano of 'Na Calma'. Anurag is in great nick on 'Na Minha Rua', blending beautifully with Alba's vocals and then doing his own solo improvisation.

'Fireflies' gets more into new age territory, and probably seems a bit heavy and abstract compared to the others. But the groove-filled Latino track 'Dias' puts you on your feet back again with Alba sounding divine, and 'O Corvo' has some controlled drumming.

The title track concludes the 44-minute album, with Alba singing, "Is this real, can you feel, do you see, Odyssey?" It's a nice singalong track which acts as a perfect conclusion to a commendable album. All through, the musicianship is spontaneous and technically brilliant, and some tracks have vocal hooks that linger as earworms.

Anurag is now based in Paris, and one has seen him in shows in Mumbai. In 2018, he had releases the solo album J'ai Fame. Odyssey is another addition to his accomplishments.