Four Corners and Centre of Raghu Dixit’s Universe

THE FOUR CORNERS

Baaba Maal - The Traveller

(Palm Recordings, 2016)

I think this is Baaba Maal’s best album and it’s one of my favourite world music albums, where so many cultures come together, and where Baaba shows off his fun side. Right from the first track it’s great with ‘Fulani Rock’, but my favourite song is definitely ‘Lampenda’. Whenever I hear it, I feel I should write a song like that, a simple two-part song. And then there’s lots of vocal jamming on top of it, and such a beautiful, recurring chorus that sticks in your head from the first time you listen to it. Simple music always attracts me a lot, so that’s what I try to do as a result. This whole album is a beautiful travel album actually.

Ravi Shankar - Inside the Kremlin

(Private Music/BMG, 1989)

This was an album that I got introduced to as a child. My dance teacher had got one of the songs from the album for all of us to learn to dance to. It’s called the ‘Shanti-Mantra’, and it is meditative, we call it a shloka, it’s like a mantra, which you chant. It wishes the best for the whole universe, and each of the elements that makes up the universe. It’s a Sanskrit mantra, which is from the Vedas [ancient Indian texts], and on top of it is a beautiful humming melody that a choir sings, and then the Moscow [Chamber] Orchestra is backing up the whole track. I remember making a copy of the album using another tape recorder that I used to make mixtapes. It’s one of my favourite albums because of ‘Shanti-Mantra’.

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino - Canzoniere

(Ponderosa Music, 2017)

I made friends with Mauro, one of the lead members of the band, thanks to Justin Adams, the guitarist. He and Mauro Durante were touring together and I got to know Mauro. It’s an album that brings together so many sounds, it sounds very Irish, it sounds Greek, it sounds Italian… It even sounds Indian to me, the scales that they use and the way the songs are composed in a very modal way; we set a song in a raga and we stick to that one particular scale. It’s relatable for me because of that, and the raspiness of the lead voice, he seems old, but the energy is so young. It’s captivating, powerful, danceable, happy… My kind of music.

Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water is Life

(Craft Recordings, 2007)

I discovered this through Songlines, it got a Top of the World review! I was drawn to them by their against-the-odds story. Also, when you get an instrument which is not your traditional instrument and you figure out your own way to play it, and the rest of the world says ‘wow.’ And that sound: overdriven, cranked-up battered amps, how naturally they are imperfectly beautiful. They try to represent their own culture and language and their poetry, their stories, but at the same time they reach out to the world through that overdriven guitar. And how the whole family gets involved, passing on traditions through generations, it’s so beautiful to see that happening.

THE CENTRE

Sting - Mercury Falling

(A&M, 1996)

As a young man growing up in Bangalore, I started earning my own money as a scientist and I would go to buy CDs and a lot of the time I would be disappointed that I would like only one or two songs, and the rest of the songs would be ordinary. Then, on a friend’s recommendation, I bought Mercury Falling and I realised how beautiful it is when you listen to an album completely from top to bottom. It became [a] kind of inspiration that I should always make albums in which all the eight, nine, ten songs or whatever I put in each album, every song should fight for its place. With Mercury Falling I realised what a brilliant songwriter Sting is; his poetry really took me by absolute awe. There’s a beautiful song, ‘I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying’, about his divorce. He speaks about child custody, how he’s managing to divide time with his child. It’s a bittersweet song of what a separated parent can feel. It’s so honest, so straightforward and so beautiful.

This feature originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe to Songlines today