This meeting of sitar player Shujaat Husain Khan and singer Katayoun Goudarzi brings together the North Indian musical heritage of the former with the latter’s Iranian linguistic background; the poems here being those of the 13th-century mystic Rumi. The poet’s personal history (a Persian speaker born in what is today Afghanistan, who spent much of his life in Anatolia) resonates nicely with the collaboration on this disc. The music derives largely from genres such as ghazal and thumri and was carefully matched with the patterns of Katayoun Goudarzi’s sung Persian: listen to how the instrumental phrases match her vocal lines on ‘Whirling Tree’. Both musicians are exceptional and very well matched but mention should also be made of the supporting players, especially the flautist Ajay Prasanna, whose great contribution adds to the success of the project. The ensemble is given its own chance to shine of the middle track, ‘Not Taken’, which is purely instrumental and provides a nice balance to the disc. However, it is really the matching of the beauty of the Persian poetic lines with the inventive, flawlessly executed music that makes this disc stand out.

Maria Lord
Track to try – Whirling Tree