Ragas From Lahore: Improvisations With Jaubi vinyl

During a trip to Lahore, Pakistan in April 2019, multi-instrumentalist and all-rounder jazz musician Tenderlonious set about a storied collaboration with local quartet Jaubi, laying down a set of six full, original instrumental ragas form a single one-day recording session. The result is the record you hear here; the emanative sounds of Indian and Pakistani classical music, acting as a framework for a spiritual interdiction between Tenderlonious on flute and soprano sax and Jaubi band members on tabla, vocals, sarangi and guitar. A determinant synth drone, lent to the euphony by Polish composer Marek Pedziwiatr, underlies the entire suite, lending this six-pack a not unfuturistic mood of brooding. Four years in the post-productive making, Ragas From Lahore is a pristine, on which the boughing lops of the tabla, the effortless flurries of the sarangi and apical vocal, and the arch-mood of overcoming and perseverance through strife, are felt with full sway. A deeply foreboding, but rewarding contemporary raga album.