Saagara’s new album 3, is the third installment of this acclaimed collaboration between Polish producer/multi-instrumentalist Wacław Zimpel and four virtuosic musicians from the Carnatic musical tradition of southern India: percussionists Giridhar Udupa (ghatam), Aggu Baba (khanjira) and K Raja (thavil) and violinist Mysore N. Karthik. It’s a buzzing juxtaposition of dense Indian rhythms and pulsating electronic patterns. An album of deeply transformative compositions that navigate tradition and experimentation as they move towards the universal.
On 3 the music is not as contemplative as it was on the previous two albums. Acidic electronic post-club sounds now counterpoint the traditional instruments, and the instruments themselves are filtered through contemporary processing. Saagara’s 3 is also more studio-based and conceptual. Zimpel devised electronic sequences and then got together in a Warsaw studio with Udupa, who began by adding konnakol (vocal percussion) rhythmic patterns to the sequences. Zimpel’s production grew from there – developing additional electronic textures, manipulating the sound of individual instruments, and deconstructing or reducing the instrument tracks altogether.
As a result, the boundary between the acoustic and the electronic, the tradition and the future, is blurred. Saagara’s new album brings the ancient ritual of Carnatic music, a music that carries the listener from one state to another, into a dance with electronic music and its techniques, beats and synthesis. The whole thing unfolds in a cosmic trance; an inspired and buzzing juxtaposition of dense Indian rhythms with pulsating electronic patterns.