I'm curious as to how much of a following a subgenre where the third highest ranked album has 9 ratings actually gets.

Unlike many boring bands the majority of indo/raga artists/bands were indifferent to gaining followings and fans. Its beautifully honest music here for us to discover and that's a wonderful thing. 

Ananda Shankar, Vasant Rai, Codona, Kalacakra, Kanguru, Clem Alford, Cosmic Eye are all amazing too.

Clivage and Codona are favourites of mine, Don Robertson, Osjan, Zendik and Fit & Limo also come recommended, all with a pretty unique sound of themselves even.

YES

It is actually a very diverse sub - as most others tbh - with acts ranging from old school Indian raga carpet rides with incense burning like there was no tomorrow (Third Ear Band) to drone experiments (Pelt) to full-on Texan Krautrock (Wulf Zendik) to zeuhl flavoured blaxpoitation prog outta Asia (Clivage). 

One of the best ways of introducing oneself to any sub on PA is to give the MP3 player a go. The playlist for Indo Pork is brilliant btw. I've been introduced to quite a few bands that way.

My reviews from the sub:

Oh my word ... if the thing is indeed a raga styled rock music ... I'm sooooo there ... I always thought the instrumental in AD2's Wolf City was the best piece of raga styled rock music I had ever heard ... and I always hoped that they had extended that a lot more ... because it was truly beautiful.

Quintessence, Shakti, and Third Ear Band are the only ones I own and know well and to me they could as easily fit into prog folk in a general manner.

Oregon is indeed here and listed as jazz rock fusion btw.

That's a great diverse offering here. I really do like the sub and need to check out more of it :) 

Nice list ... but the differences are rough for my ears. ECM's version of this should be "jazz-weird with Brazilian overtones" ... for Codona. ECM has a lot of mixes and different things, that defy definition and ideas. It is one of the reasons why I like so much listening to many of their folks ... you do not know what you gonna get. Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek specially in his experimental days (Eventyr is a must!!!!!!), Egberto Gismonti ... and their work has a lot of "raga" written all over it to the point that Garbarek even did stuff with Ali Ahkbar Khan (spelling) and the album was called "Ragas and Sagas" ... 

I have not seen, honestly, a really good and well done ROCK MUSIC version of ragas and Bekker and Fertier were nice but you could not get past the scales in the notes at times, and one of the things that is important in the development of the "raga" is to allow the music to supersede the notes, and allow the feeling to take over, not the notes or chords. I like to say, close your eyes and play.

Working on the other listens.

I'll post more as I listen to these ... but was already thinking of Georg Deuter, but he would fit better as electronic ragas, although the 1st album is very different and might be added to the list possibly.

I've been a collector of "meditative" music every since day one ... and my collection is extensive in this area, with Frank Perry, Stephan Micus and many others that created ragas with their music. Of these the focused meditations by Frank Perry in his first two albums are totally magnificent and out of this world ... and very strong, and not something that most meditation inspired people even want to try ... it is a trip through the Tibetan cymbals and bowls, and it is powerful enough to make your stomach churn, if you are not experienced in that kind of thing. But once one gets past that, it is one of the best trips every created on an album in my experience ... a pure "raga" in its best sense. Not sure that anyone has ever created one of these on keyboards, though there are some that are close, but I always think that it is just teasing us with an idea ... here's a sound effect, and you are supposed to imagine the piece of music in that context. That does not always work for me, as my imagination is one of those ... gotta experience it myself. David Parsons is like this, but has some nice stuff also (Yatra).

(Edit April 3) Got as far as Floating Flower stuff so far in this list. Nice stuff!

 

Might I also suggest:  Loop Guru

                                Amorphous Androgynous

                                West India Company ( side project of Blancmange )

                                Monsoon ( with Sheila Chandra )

                                Sheila Chandra ( without Monsoon )

cheers...

Thanks ... I didn't have enough of Chandra's work to say anything yet, and the others, in general, I am still on the listen for them.

Popol Vuh is a different discussion, at least until the days before Florian passed away. There is something else at play there that kinds throws off the discussion, and it might fit more into a "pagan" discussion (as in dancing/expression) than it does a meditative discussion, even though it is a very nice set of albums in the early days, that are perfect fits for meditations, and I'm not sure these can be considered "raga's" or not ... I have to investigate the difference, if any. I think one compliments the other, and that they might not necessarily be different. But I am not sure how to word this properly yet ... so please excuse me.

Fusion of jazz and Indian music has been a thing in the UK at least since John Mayer and Joe Harriott's group in the mid sixties. Arun Ghosh has recently been doing good things in this area. This is admittedly a bit off-topic, but I thought a few examples might be of interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I highly recommend this album, on Svart, if you dig spiritual jazz and/or sitar and/or Advaitic Songs-period Om.

 

 

Thank you oh enlightened one.

Michael: Never heard of that one but like Greg it resonates with me as well. Great for a peaceful morning where the sun ever so slightly peeps through the mist.

Greg: You have beautiful punctuation. Is this something that evolves with one's thirst for jazz...or is that the other way around? Kerouac went the other route and threw such buffoonery out the window.  

I'm not sure how all of this reminded me of last year's African take on Terry Riley's classic 'In C', but it did. If nothing else, I think it will be of interest to most folks reading this thread:

It looks to me as if you want Bekker and Fertier to be other kinds of artists than they actually are. Bekker is obviously closer to plain psychedelic rock with an eastern sounding twang - but the latter artist is fusing jazz, indian classical music, prog, raga, rock and more which is why he fits the genre nicely in a manner Stephan Micus or Jan Garbarek doesn't. Taking inspiration and translating ragas 'n such into some sort of ROCK MUSIC is intentional - and some make this work magnificently, but you have to accept the premise.

 

And seriously Codona is not "jazz-weird with Brazilian overtones". That's giving the na=Naná Vasconcelo much more credit than Co=Collin Walcott + do=Don Cherry in the middle was always more oriented towards the east. If they debuted in 1988 instead of 1978 they're world fusion would be labeled world music.  

 

 

  Namaste David! Glad you liked it.

 

If you didn't find the album yet, you can get the CD from the Svart web shop for €5. Vinyl is a bit more expensive - but nice to have that groovy cover art in LP size

This is, by far, one of the very best meditation albums EVER done. However, this is really difficult for a beginner, as I found out, until I heard it enough times to begin feeling comfortable with "tripping" on it. It's really not a "trip" but a very relaxing jaunt through various chakras and inner details, that one would have to interpret themselves.

The 2nd album of his is also very good, but the power and strength of this first album is already ... spread out on the floor a bit ... making the album not as good, or as such an incredibly focused piece of work, for a meditation. 

There was a thread here once on meditation, and some of this music, and there were a lot of these mentioned. Highly recommended, and hopefully we can find it.

Been onto ECM since 1971, and a very thorough listener to a lot of their musicians, specially all the foreign ones. It's no surprise to anyone here on this board that I mention Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Keith Jarrett (up to 1990), Egberto Gismonti, Charlie Haden, Eberhard Weber, Shakti, and so many others that it's hard to keep track of it all. Nana's album with Egberto is a treat! (Duas Vozes) (translates to Two Voices).

In some ways, Nana makes a lot of things sound very "Brazilian" for my tastes, and this might have been from the time I lived there ... it feels right, and sometimes, you can see many folks in the streets of the Carnaval who play exactly the same thing, and you are likely to find musicians doing that out in the middle of nowhere in Brazil, away from the city. It is, by "definition" a "raga" of sorts ... in a different country, and I consider what Egberto Gismonti did on his early days ... very similar ... here comes the guitar ... for 15 minutes and you just melt away ... pure raga thing.

"Raga", if we take the word directly, would mean that the music has to be "hindu" of some sort ... OK ... Garbarek and Khan ... (Ragas and Sagas) ... but in the end, that is like saying that there were no "ragas" in Africa, Latin America and other continents, and we know there were ... thus the consideration of the term is important.

"Raga" is a "musical meditation". Thus you could say, for example, that Frank Perry's first album fits, the Wolff and Hemmings first 3 albums also fit (Tibetan Bells), Paul Horn's in the pyramid also fits, Egberto Gismonti in the jungle (Solo and that time period) also fits, and I suppose that one could consider things like Jarrett in Koln a similar styled meditation or raga, within a different context.

I did not dislike the work of the two guys mentioned previously, but compared to a lot of these and detailed listening, I would endup almost telling you that "In a Gadda da Vida" was a better meditation! Stoned or otherwise! THAT, is not a comment about it being weak, or not good enough ... it's just a comment about an inner feeling and preference ... which would make me not vote for good meditation music ... when you compare this to Popol Vuh's first 2 albums, for example ... 

Meditation is not talk. Meditation is a serious thing. It's not an idea, either. It's a solid, and well known state of mind ... and not all music fits ... because some of it "interferes" with the inner "quiet" required to help the mind slow down to the point where it allows the "flow" to come to you. Before that, you have stomach aches, and sometimes measurable discomforts, like your mind feels like it's falling and falling ... which is a sign that you are not getting past the barriers, to get to the inner silence.

How far do you want to go? (.. is all we need to ask ourselves, I think! ... )

I really can't stand those ECM-meditational "raga" albums by once great jazz players. They make me itch. If I'm up for something like that I'll reach for my Sharan Rani-albums instead. Hearing those early Paul Horn jazz recording after those good for nothing pyramid-albums was quite a revelation.

When you write about Codona it looks as if you're describing music from a memory that fails you - not from listening.

Just haven't heard them in 30 some years ... and is on my agenda to get ... since there definitely is something worthwhile in there ... in general, for my tastes Walcott was always worth listening to. As were many others in those days at ECM.

Truly excellent music all around.

 

That album is by far the mellowest thing I've heard Simmons do. He was a real tearaway in the sixties. An album he did with Prince Lasha (and the wicked rhythm team of Bobby Hutcherson, Buster Williams and Charles Moffett) in 1967, Firebirds, is my favourite thing of his and it's pretty fiery indeed. Worth a listen for sure (though not Indo at all).

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds like you already know a lot of it, but I think pretty much all of the avant-garde end of Blue Note's sixties output is is really worth hearing: Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, and Grachan Moncur of course. And then there's the odd album from their more mainstream artists that leans further to leftfield - e.g. Freddie Hubbard's Breaking Point.

 

 

Don't know Hubbard's Breaking Point though, so onto my humongous list it goes.

Going back to the premise of the thread, I'd like to recommend the South African band Abstract Truth. Early 70s band with a foot firmly planted in the preceding decade - sprinkled lightly with Indian vibes, fairy dust and a healthy dosage of LSD:

Was just reading an article by Peter Michael Hamel (Between) in Eurock (1980 I think) and he discusses the influences of a lot of African and Eastern music in Europe, and how some of those things were used in Western music. 

Very interesting and it pretty much says that the major effort is in mixing the cultures, or interpret that culture's this in that within one's own context. And his discussion even goes way back to some great jazz greats.