Elixir

by Rick AndersonThe follow-up to Kaya Project's excellent debut album finds the duo of Seb Taylor and Natasha Chamberlain continuing their exploration of Eastern sonorities, ethnic beats, and dark, dubwise production techniques. In addition to Taylor's guitars (among other instruments) and Chamberlain's keyboards and vocals, on this project they drew on the talents of shakuhachi player Clive Bell, tabla player Johnny Kalsi, bansuri player Hayat Mohammad and many others, including five guest vocalists. This time out the group's sound is heavily influenced by South Asia in melodic terms, while many of the album's sound flavors owe much to the Pacific Rim. On "65 Percent" the duo makes brilliantly funky use of sampled water sounds, blended nicely with what sound like kalimba and assorted percussion; "Raag to Ragga" explores funky reggae dub territory, while "Ghasi Ram Blues" makes nice use of slide guitar and calls to mind Bill Laswell's Hear No Evil album. "One God Dub" and "Pachamama" fail to generate quite the same level of energy as that found on the rest of the album, but overall this is an excellent follow-up to the group's exquisite debut.