Where the Soul Never Dies

Mike Block is one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene. A cellist and member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, he specialises in demonstrating his instrument’s versatility as he explores styles from across the planet. Last summer he released Guzo (a Top of the World in the November 2020 issue, #162), in which he played alongside anything from kora and balafon to saxophone. Now he is working as part of a duo with the Indian tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das, a classically-trained player who accompanied Ravi Shankar while still a teenager, now lives in the US, and has (of course) also collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma.

The result is an album that shows how two fine musicians can create an extraordinary variety of sounds, moods and styles from just twin Indian hand drums and a cello. There are Indian, Nepalese and Arabic tunes here, along with American folk influences (sometimes in the same piece), along with slow, atmospheric passages that evolve into jaunty tunes, or gently mesmeric drum’n’cello riffs. And there are even vocal passages as Das echoes the complex rapid-fire rhythms of his drums, with Block adding gospel vocals on the title-track. Guzo showed that Block loves to match his cello experiments against sturdy percussion, and with Das he has the ideal sparring partner.