Indigo Soul

A confident and exhilarating album, Indigo Soul suffers slightly from a trade description issue. Unnati is presented as a ‘London based Indo-jazz artist,’ but, while there are some identifiably ‘jazzy’ influences – like in the keys part of ‘Tum Agaye’ – it would be a stretch, by any definition, to call this jazz. Instead, what we have here is a record rooted in Indian classical music and infused with all sorts of influences from around the globe, but, ultimately, drawing far more upon Western rock and pop than on jazz. This acknowledged, it is actually a very fine album from the daughter of one of the 20th century's finest Indian singers, Nitai Dasgupta.

A plethora of Indian instruments, such as tabla and bansuri, accompany Unnati's virtuosic and captivating voice, and are joined by guitar, bass and drums. On a couple of tracks there are also some lush string backings, provided by the Budapest Film Orchestra, which give a greater sense of scale to the production and emphasise its crossover approach. At its heart, an Indian recording, Indigo Soul also shows how comfortably Indian music sits with other genres while still conveying all the grace and power of its wellspring.