Review | Songlines

Posse of Fireflies

Rating: ★★★

View album and artist details

Album and Artist Details

Artist/band:

Supriya Nagarajan

Label:

Manasamitra

November/2022

Yorkshire-based Karnatic singer Supriya Nagarajan recalls the India of her youth on this record, which highlights the wonder and mystery we lose through light pollution. This is a soothing listening experience. Each track situates Nagarajan’s mellifluous vocals in a bed of found sound and ambient electronic tones, subtly blended by Duncan Chapman. The result is an aural equivalent to the ‘slow living’ movement, which is known for long videos of rural trains or fireplaces that encourage us to embrace a slower pace.

A deepened focus sharpens subtle details, such as the insect-like skittering that underscores an eerie flute on the coda of ‘As the Journey Begins’. The interaction of Lucy Nolan’s harp and Ben Castle’s clarinet that begins ‘Mira’s Bhakti’ is another instrumental highlight, with the bass clarinet deployed by Castle on later tracks supplying a pleasingly contemplative tone. In its length and consistency Posse of Fireflies is almost provocatively meditative. A listener must practise patience to decelerate onto its wavelength. Like the discipline of a breathing exercise the album pays off with a sense of reflective suspension.

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