Nitin Sawhney: sonic rainbow over a ‘sepia’ world

Record collecting can be a time-consuming and quite repetitious addiction. Imagine, if you started buying records at the dawn of The Beatles, it would have been on mono long-playing records, then stereo albums, followed by the Eight-track cartridges, coloured/shaped/flavoured vinyls, cassettes, compact discs, MP3s, iPod… Excuse me, how many times do we need to buy the same song? If I bought a Picasso’s painting I’d paid once and enjoyed it for the rest of my life!

In any case, the industry’s blaming public for its downturn is as true as the ‘sexed-up’ report on Iraqi’s WMD! For every safe-as-houses band of the Evanescence ilk there is The Warlocks; for every tame-‘rebel’ such as Avril Lavigne there is The Client; for every lame Kings Of Leon there is The Killing Joke! For all the mind-numbing ersatz-pop, there is Nitin Sawhney and you should root for his kind for fighting against the major’s lack of nerve, imagination and a refusal to take risks.

‘Human’ is Sawhney’s sixth studio album and his most accessible to date. No, he hasn’t manipulated down his aesthetic standpoint but has found a beautiful balance between his artistry/experimentalism and popularism. He’s simply discovered how to wed World music expression with the Western idioms without sounding alien to a common pop consumer.

The former Mercury Music Prize nominee – and if the award were really for ‘forwarding the form’ then he should have won unanimously – continues to build his own niche as a unique musical force in the event under the circus top called, laughingly, Pop Culture. It is usually one-dimensional affair where everything is so plain, obvious, derivative whereas ‘Human’ offers you a journey through the soundscapes of mind, body, spirit and inspiration.

Launching with velvet sexuality of creamy R&B track ‘The River’, delivered by Blur vocalist Alani, it sounds like a cut recorded in New Delhi, Michigan; ‘Eastern Eyes’ is set amidst the Brazilian beats with Natasha Atlas adding an air of ‘1000 nights’ while musically it is holding back, never fully letting it go to further frustrate the desire. That could be the album’s only snag, it remains restrained, polite and it doesn’t bust out although there are several tracks you wish his instincts capitulated to the out-there vibe for the simple reason that life ain’t no chill-out zone.

Martin Luther King’s ‘State Of Union Address’ sets the mood for a pensive, delicate and breathtakingly understated ‘Say Hello’ and parade of standards continues via trip-hoppy ‘Heer’, haunting ‘Fragile Wind’, brooding Hip-hop on ‘Chetan Jeevan (Conscious Life)’, passionate funkying on ‘Rainfall’, all the way to the spirituality of minimalistic ‘The Boatman’. Nitin Sawhney’s ‘Human’ is an album to make you proud of being a member of this Earthling tribe because it strives to express a global view rather than a singular genre’s. These are songs for people who aren’t afraid to face their curiosity.

Just imagine if a flying saucer were to land today near Roswell, New Mexico, and Extraterrestrials get to hear this music, they’d go back to the Cosmic Council and recommend us for entry into ‘UP’ (United Planets). Alas, the imaginary ‘visitors’ either got hold of J-Lo or Britney’s current albums or, perhaps even worse, the 50 Cent’s disc!? All who feel like the mainstream’s outcasts should embrace Nitin Sawhney.

8.6/10
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Tour dates (remaining):

19 July – Worldport Festival, Manchester
20 July – Shepherds Bush Empire, London
03 August – Big Chill