Suphala - Instru Mental

Anyone truly intrigued by innovation in music will love this album.  Its pretty much that simple.

Though this is her debut release, and an intrumental (hence the title, ahem) to boot, its a weird thing to review post having listened to her 2 subsequent releases.  Nonetheless it both plays refreshingly in its own right and yet represents an underlying value she has for expressing inspiration.

Instru Mental has just 8 tracks but they all feature such curious placement of tabla as framework for constructing aural atmosphere that the albums texture results in it being highly listenable - 8 tracks could well be 15 or 20.  For this prominent stylistic-meets-structural use of tabla, Instru Mental is uniquely innovative - most instrumental albums released by 2001, and even until 2009 for that matter [when this review was written], don't have the confidence to frame percussive movement within the perspective of tabla tradition - or rather liberate percussive technique with tabla's unlimited potential for improvisation.

Without trying to put it in a box, this album listens both more powerfully and personally than the first time I heard Amon Tobin - melding broken breaks, bells, squelchy keys, thick bass, effected horns, the odd vocal sample and much more with master tabla percussion.

Top notch and a must-have for all!