ALBUM REVIEWS

Nitin Sawhney LONDON UNDERSOUND INSTRUMENTALS & REMIXES COOKING VINYL 12.10.09 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk This is better than the parent album! London Undersound was a set of collaborations from Nitin Sawhney that sought to draw the London that Nitin knows, coloured with the shift in consciousness that 2005 brought. Starting with the experience of a friend present at both the bus bombing and, a fortnight later, the police shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, Nitin built a song then an album of work with other artists. He describes the way he feels London has become polarised in a way he finds uncomfortable and threatening. A powerful work, dressed in Anthony Gormley line drawings, the intentions and songs almost mask the music beneath. Here we have eighty minutes (in the same immaculate Gormley clothes) of instrumentals and remixes. Stripped of vocal guests, this is much more Sawhney’s album and the beauty of the music becomes more apparent. An accomplished hand at scoring his compositions, the arrangements have space and body, conjuring a fragile vision. The set becomes a pleasant and refreshing listen, passing through different landscapes with ever-propulsive but unhurried beats. Sawhney ranges across drum and bass, jazz, Indian vocal scat, folky strums and all areas in between. The instrumentals are perhaps more organic than the remixes but they provide sufficiently alternative views of the material to avoid feeling like repeats. Ross McGibbon www.nitinsawhney.com Email Links & Comments to the editor Check the latest album releases