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Sitar Joe (costum cdr) (US,2010)*°
It took me a while trying to get used to some aspects of Sitar Joe's approach of sitar's ideas of blending music listening to the one-man band approach result of his album, but I could not completely. Involved is what he calls himself a unique approach of "mindblending" music from something like “20 years experience” (-is anyone busy with something for 20 years also equally experienced?-), instead of just saying this is music made for fun based upon a few commonly known ideas. Because, what almost every sitar player I know who fought against during their lives, the exploiting of the sounds of the sitar for stomping fun music, this is exactly the “experimental” (or what he calls “unique”) approach of sitar Joe.
On one hand Sitar Joe did work with serious backgrounds on music. He studied sitar with Ali akhbar Khna at his college, he was the lead singer and guitarist of prog band North Star, has shared stages with people like Ike Willis/Napolian Murphy Brock (Frank Zappa Band), Vince Welnick (Greatful Dead) and has performed at jazz festivals with a full seventeen piece HSU jazz band with sitar. For this release he also uses different techniques on the sitar. He plays it electric and also plays bowed acoustic sitar. But the combination of beats and the mixtures of styles still sound more primitive and basic than it should be in a creative sense. While everything is built around stomping beats it is that very aspect where Sitar Joe is not particularly so good. It brings any of the possibilities of fusion and blend down, turning the formula into new age/ trance techno /GOA form where music as something of a creatively surprising blending mind becomes secondary or even is killed and stripped to the bone to turn only to a simple groove with a superficial effect which only reminds vaguely of perhaps a few good associations.
"Venus Tribe Stomp" is somewhat flashy city tribal music, with a small influence of dub, stuffed with forward arrangements. The rhythms of “Belly Dance Rave” also give a bit too much the impression of a less natural beating rhythm box, while the tribal ideas themselves already mentioned are vague and the melodies simple, the full concept turns the sitar into a sampled party instrument. “Dancing with infinity” incorporates succesfully a longer sitar solo, Indian raga styled. But I still got the impression it turned this blending idea into a sort of new age form of electro-world beat. The next track takes a ride on Miles Davis's “So What” with some trumpet. Also this comes over as simplifying its possibilities despite several added layers of colouring arrangements. What sounds good on “Serpent Rise” is the harmonium, and the bowed sitar playing Indian violin styled, while the hand claps and rhythms turns the direction towards a simpler form of Drum & Bass. “Turkish oil Dance” is even more primitively stomping, in that way the exotic elements become ridiculed. “Star Fire Majik” uses bansuri flute and electric sitar on a bit more gentle rhythm.
In the context of a goa party, I am sure Sitar Joe's approach will work.
