I'm always more than a little suspicious of Carnatic music that is nicely packaged - the tasteful soft focus photography cries out "World Music" to me - the authentic stuff usually looks like crap, has virtually no album notes and can be found new for $9.99 at Shrimati's music and sari store down on University. I was browsing at Amoeba today and came across a new album by my favourite current Carnatic singer Aruna Sairam. It looked too pretty to be true - the only info on the outside of the cd was the artist, title - "divine inspiration" (very world music) and track titles. I didn't immediately recognize any of the titles but a few of them looked familiar - Saravanabhava and Rangapura Vihara and the last track was a Tillana, just like in a "real" Carnatic program perhaps. The label was World Village, one that has no history of Carnatic releases but they did put out two of the best new African albums of last year (Tinariwen and Vieux Farka Toure). I decided to spring for the $16 full "World Music" price (after Amoeba's discount). Verdict - $16 very well spent. The album has several highlights for me. The Mirabai pada "Govinda Leena Mol" (track 2) is quite the most lovely version of a Mirabai song that I've ever heard. The centerpiece of the album (track 4) is an 18 minute ragam, tanam & kriti in Todi, the song being Purandaradasa's kirtana "Bandanodi". Very fine. The sound quality is superb and the album notes are substantial, informative and well written but oddly don't point out that the two tracks, 7 and 8 are really connected. Track 7 is a virutham in raga Brndavana Saranga on a verse by the 8th century Tamil poet-saint Tondaradipodi Alwar sung here in place of a more usual alapana for the following track - the Muthuswami Dikshitar kriti "Rangapura Vihara". Together they form the highest point of this excellent album, the first of many Carnatic offerings (I hope) from World Village.
