King of Ghosts

Recorded to celebrate 70 years of Indian sovereignty, this album carries urgency and optimism in every plucked note. King of Ghostswas created as a new soundtrack for Satyajit Ray's epic 1960s film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne; it is an exhilarating sonic journey into a fantastical realm of bamboo forests, dancing ghosts, black magic and battlefields. The album starts with ‘Morning Song’, which begins much like a traditional alap (slow introductory section to a raga) before Cormac Byrne's bodhrán (drum) introduces the urgent excitement with which Goopy and Bagha (the titular characters in Ray's film) find themselves testing their musical superpowers. The protagonists gain the ability to hold people motionless and break evil spells with their music – if there are any real-world heirs to this gift, they are undoubtedly Soumik Datta and his collaborators here.

The fretless sarod (lute) is front and centre. It leads a jugalbandi (duet) with the orchestra in ‘The Chase’, percussively competes with the bodhrán in ‘How to Stop a War’, capitalises on the cinematic grandeur of the string section in ‘King of Ghosts’ and is utterly enchanting in the minimalist ‘Ghost Dance’. In the accompanying liner notes, Soumik Datta asks of the listener three questions: ‘Does it work?’; ‘Do you feel anything?’; ‘Are you moved?’. The answer to all three is an unequivocal ‘Yes!’