Anudrutam is the new CD by Toronto percussionist, composer and audiovisual artist Debashis Sinha. The title is a carnatic (south Indian) term which refers to one of the many parts of the tala, the rhythmic cycle that forms the bedrock of music from the Indian subcontinent. Here, Anudrutam becomes a herald, a banner that percussionist Sinha flies that proclaims his love of rhythm and the reassertion of its primacy in his work.
After over a decade on the Canadian world music scene and countless concert and CD appearances with that country’s brightest lights (Autorickshaw, The Flying Bulgars, Maza Mezé, Jesse Cook, etc), Sinha is making a name for himself as a solo artist whose works span many genres. Over the last few years, Sinha’s unique blend of contemporary world music/percussion, the digital studio and contemporary compositional approaches has been in demand with invitations St John’s, Newfoundland to Berlin, Germany for live performance, sound art festivals and radio performances/composition.
This love of sound art and experimental techniques go hand in hand with a love of groove based, emotional music. Sinha has developed an artistic voice that straddles many genres---world music, free improvisation, electronica, new music---integrated in a way that hits the listener equally in the head and heart. Of his many projects, this is especially true of Anudrutam, incorporating world music rhythms and instruments, extended playing techniques, electroacoustic music, and field recordings from India into a deeply nuanced and emotional aural journey that explores rhythm, his heritage as a second generation Canadian, and a life lived in between cultures.
Anudrutam is a release that is impressive in its breadth, but more so in its focus of vision. It is an utterly unique expression from one of Canada’s long standing transcultural music artists.
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