Artist	Song
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook, remixed by Aki Nawaz	Longing (Remix)
from Star Rise 7:45
Monsoon	Tomorrow Never Knows
from Monsoon Featuring Sheila Chandra 4:06
Ry Cooder & V. M. Bhatt	Isa Lei
from A Meeting by the River 7:41
Ravi Shankar	Kathakali Katthak
from The Rough Guide to Ravi Shankar / The Musical Genius of Pandit Ravi Shankar 3:01
Bill Laswell	Thunupa
from ROIR Dub Sessions / Sacred System Chapter 2 13:36
Chöying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts	Yumchen Tukar
from Selwa 5:40
Shivkumar Sharma, Brijbhushan Kabra & Hariprasad Chaurasia	Pahadi
from The Rough Guide to the Music of the Himalayas / Call Of The Valley 6:47
Gary Lucas (w/ David Johansen, Matt Johnson, Lee Farber)	Spider Web
from Improve the Shining Hour 4:27
Shakti	Lotus Feet [Live]
from Shakti with John McLaughlin 4:47
Tabla Beat Science feat. Ustad Sultan Khan	Devotional
from Tala Matrix 8:12
Richard & Linda Thompson	Night Comes In
from Pour Down Like Silver 8:13
Allen Ginsberg w/ the Reverend Adjari & Buddhist Chorus	Pacific High Studio Mantras (Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum)
from Holy Soul Jelly Roll Vol. 3: Ah! 5:27

Comment:

I was inspired to make this mix after hearing slipperyhangdoglook's wonderful Indian-Western fusion mix, "India Thing #1". My mix is calmer in general than his; I suppose that just comes out of my approach to Indian music. I'm also thinking of this mix as being a sequel to my previous mix, "The Parting Glass: Celtic Excursions", which is one of my all-time favorites among my mixes.

"Indian" here refers generally to the Indian subcontinent: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is Pakistani, and Chöying Drolma is from Tibet, but with that caveat I'd say that all tracks here except "Night Comes In" and "Pahadi" are Indian-Western fusion. "Pahadi" is supposedly a (very short) raga, according to the Himalayas Rough Guide liner notes, though several of its features mark it out as taking its place more among these tracks than among traditional ragas: it's missing a percussionless alap (rubato introductory section), for example.

The unifying factor here can be taken to be the duality "LOSE MY MIND" & "DANCE FOREVER", the mantra from Richard Thompson's statement Sufi album, Pour Down Like Silver, a title that itself, like this mix's title, is a line from album centerpiece "Night Comes In"; Thompson's song, slow, worshipful, fearful and ecstatic at the same time, is the only piece here featuring no Indian instruments or musicians, but its spirit seems identical. The dancing he describes appears to be one of lingering whirls and leaps, far removed in cultural domain from a danceclub-ready track like "Longing" or "Devotional", yet perhaps not so different in spirit as long as time is sufficiently elastic.

In addition to the tracks listed above, "Kathakali Katthak" is a dance track in another sense: it was composed by Indian-Western fusion pioneer Ravi Shankar for the dance drama, Ghanashyam. The "Lose My Mind" side comes in at Shakti's "Lotus Feet", whose tabla player, Zakir Hussain, immediately changes thereafter to dance mode for "Devotional" (if any musician deserves to appear on two tracks here, it's Zakir Hussain, the crown prince of Indian-Western fusion), and at Buddhist nun Drolma's "Yumchen Tukar" soundscape that owes more than a bit of debt to folksong. Both sides come together on "Thunupa", which earns its thirteen and a half minutes on this mix: the characteristic submerged qualities of Laswell's dub create quite the mysterious air around Bill Buchen's omnipresent tabla beats.

Ultimately, I think this is a tabla-centered mix: most of the first 10 tracks feature prominent tabla, until Richard Thompson breaks all us Westerners back into familiar territory (I must admit sadly that this mix is created undoubtedly from a Western perspective), and Allen Ginsberg then brings us full circle to the zero point of an ancient mantra. "India Thing #1" gives more weight to the sitar, and so maybe I can claim that my mix complements slipperyhangdoglook's?

In any case, thanks to Dead Man as well for Sheila Chandra and Monsoon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" cover; a great way to kick off the "Western" side of this mix's equation!

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