By GRAHAM REID
Herald rating: * * * )
Tabla player/producer Singh has been a pivotal figure in bringing the Asian Underground into the spotlight and his last album OK was a natty mix of dance beats and tabla, Indo-samples and jazzy ambience.
In this follow-up of the Indo-samples component it's
more of the same but less so, and the familiarity of the amalgam style quickly wears thin. But he also stretches out into reggae-fusions and some kind of amorphous World Music ethic, which sounds undercooked in places and slightly anxious in others.
At its best this is interesting and even mildly addictive, particularly the lengthy mantra-like Mustard Fields, the boiling, shadowy dancefloor-directed Uphold and the dusk ambience-to-drum'n'bass dancefloor journey of See Breeze. But over the full length there's a nagging suspicion Singh has spun too little too far.
Much like those pan-global soundtracks on airline advertisements, this album tries to encompass a world view and often ends up sounding like it comes from nowhere in particular.
Label: Universal
