Ka Provocative but Distancing

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SHIRISH KORDE

Ka

Svarassa Records

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File this one under the category of fascinating, but under realized. Shirish Korde is a genre-bending composer of symphonic music–think Phillip Glass with South Asian influences. Korde is also a music professor at Holy Cross whose works have been performed around the globe and is perhaps best known for his opera Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen. That work, like Ka, was developed with Boston Musica Visa, a group that melds chamber music, opera, theater and, in this case, Indian music. The term Ka comes from the Rig Veda and is a difficult-to-translate Sanskrit noun/pronoun that relates to creation and blurs the boundaries between who and what.

If that seems a bit dense to you, it’s emblematic of both this album’s provocative possibilities and its emotional distancing. It is a five-song cycle, though the term “song” is problematic as ka deemphasizes recognized language. It features soprano Deepti Navaratna, who is both a trained South Indian classical musician and a Harvard neuroscientist. Hers is a stunning voice, though much of what she produces is a vocalization array that aims at those parts of us that are primal and instinctual. They are also nearly impossible to comprehend. The music–arranged primarily for stringed instruments (mostly cello) and tabla–often sounds like the intersection between chant, opera, world music, and free form jazz. At is best it is so hypnotic that I suspect a live performance of Ka would be a transformative experience. Alas, we tend not to listen to CDs the same way in which we absorb concerts. Ka is meant an integrated musical experience. This means that the CD’s numerous quiet passages and silences often fail to provoke meditative reflection and simply seem empty. Likewise, keening vocals meant to tap into spiritual mysteries sound, when ripped from their context, sound like one of Yoko Ono’s odd departures.

None of this is to say that Ka is a bad composition. It might, in fact, be brilliant. But it also validates one of my long held axioms that not all great music should be recorded. Put the musicians on the stage, and barriers melt; remove the stage and mental walls can rise. The latter was my experience with Ka. If I might, it was too academic to be accessible.

Rob Weir