After scoring soundtracks and producing others work, Basswalla is Adham Shaikh's first new original material in five years and it would seem that he's not lost a step in his time away. The album, despite having a really bad EDM-ish like name to it, is far better then it's name and cover would seem to indicate. Taking South Asian influences and adding a bit of dance floor swagger to them Adham Shaikh has created a record that's a sub-woofer throbbing behemoth of global chill out cool. Basswalla while containing new material also contains several updated versions of songs Shaikh's released over the last thirteen years. Not really a greatest hits record with some new stuff thrown on top, Shaikh actually re-interpreted his older material with a bit of improvisational spice so that everything here sounds new and fresh.
Basswalla
resides somewhere between a chill out record straight out of India
and a trunk rattling bass exploration that just happens to have a
Southern Asian vibe. It's a nice mix between the two and Shaikh has
been around the block long enough to know how to craft songs that are
not only rich in atmospherics but also have the ability to find a
groove. As he says himself the record, “sits squared at the
intersection of prayer and dance floor.” It's a serene calming
experience that just happens to make you want to dance. His layered
atmospherics and mixing of traditional instrumentation with wave
after wave of bass creates this experience that's hard to forget. Of
the ten songs that make up Basswalla
only one falls flat on it's face (“Cultivation”) and it's simply
because the rap shouldn't be there. As for the rest of the record
it's the sound of modern India via the global bass community and it's
just about perfect either as an atmospheric experience or a night on
the tiles.
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