SHAKTI WITH JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

While McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra was still standing on its last leg, Mc had already thought of his next project, which was supposed to fuse Western and Eastern poles in terms of music in equal parts. This became Shakti With J McL, but the least that can be said is that the Indian music has completely monopolized this and following albums. Please don't see this as a negative comment from my part, but if the goal was indeed to fuse equally, when Shakti is a failure since the Indian side just ate the Western side alive. Geographical considerations aside, this series of three albums is a splendid trilogy and most likely one of the best suited as an intro to Indian classical music. Recorded live on July 75, this album goes a long way to show how virtuosi Indian music is, with just a violin player and two percussion players (but playing other specific instruments as well, such as mridangam and ghantam) accompanying Mc, making them an acoustic and almost entirely instrumental quartet. Too bad about the photo artwork, though!

A rundown of the tracks is not really necessary (just three of them anyway with the sidelong track on the flipside being my fave), but this kind of music is never boring if you care to get involved into at decent levels. Mc's lightning-fast guitar playing is suiting admirably well the Indian musicians as he can make up whatever feeling he's still lacking (for the moment) with sheer velocity, making it sound dramatic. While I dig Indian music, having seen Ravhi Shankar around 11 years old, I enjoy Shakti for a while, but I hardly listen to more than one side of vinyl per side, a full album meaning over-saturation for me. As you can guess, Shakti records can't appeal to every proghead, so this debut album should be the one to try first to see if there is any affinity before going further.

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