Journey To The East

I headed over to Lula Lounge on Tuesday for the CD release show of Autorickshaw, an Indo-jazz duo comprising of Suba Sankaran (vocals) and Ed Hanley (tabla). The Humours of Autorickshaw is their first disc in 7 years, and the 4th in their catalogue. Tonight, they had a full band comprising of numerous musicians who played on the CD including Andrew Craig (producer/synth), Jaran Freeman-Fox (violin) and Gordon Sheard (accordion).

Proficient at both Western jazz and singing and Indian ragas and rhythms, Sankaran easily straddled both worlds. Hanley was a dynamo on the tabla. Their set, featuring almost every new song,  often had complex rhythm and signature changes. Even a cover of Big Yellow Taxi was done in 7/8. Outside of the slow lullaby Raj Kumari, which provided suitable dreaminess for a yoga relaxation, the music was typically upbeat and fast, sometimes dizzyingly so. Such as the appropriately named Kapi-Wallah (Coffee Seller). Since Sunkaran is also part of 80s a cappella band Retrocity, she enlisted their help on choral piece Kamalajadala and Paul Simon's Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard.

I preferred their performance on the songs where they played as a smaller group. The sound system at Lula Lounge was too underpowered to provide support when there were multiple mic sources onstage. I felt the mix got a little muddy in that situation and it became cacophonous. Overall though, it was a great set with some power-house musicians.