Bombay Dub Orchestra
Tales From the Grand Bazaar
Six Degrees Records
Will we never run out of musical genera to mix and match? The Bombay Dub Orchestra (Andrew T. Mackay and Garry Hughes) is back with a third album of east/west fusion music for chilling and zoning. We open to a saffron infused sitar only to quickly slide into a western loopy bass line; the sitar bends and sways and the rhythm recalls a ganja infuse dreadlock party. Mild drops appear, they won’t stop your heart but they subtly state “Toto, I don’t think were in Punjab anymore.” Female vocals arise with a moaning aura that accentuates the beat while echoing the muezzin’s call to prayer.
Bombay Dub Orchestra finds that sinuous path between Eastern polytonalism and Westerns orchestral structure. As each gently unique track advances we gradually becomes more electronic, suddenly a synthesizer floats by and we wonder: “Am I on the subcontinent, or dream pop show in Miami?” Titles recall the “One Thousand and One Nights:” “Songs from the Seven Towers”, “Sea of Marmara”, and “Blue Mosaic” make perfect sense. Somewhere behind and inside of this dreamscape are ghosts of everything in the Indo-European music tradition from Icelandic chants to Appalachian fiddles to Spanish folk songs – you can’t hear them, but they cast shadows in the corners of your ear if you just close your eyes and smell the incense.
