I encountered the band called Indian Ocean, when I saw them play their unique brand of music - fusion would be an inaccurate term to describe what they do, and on the Silk Road program they were billed as 'jazz rock with a tabla' - on stage at the excellent the Silk Road Festival in Washington DC, on July 4th (the US Independence day), some four summers ago. It was a humid and hellish day, only as summers in DC can be, but IO's music was so good that heat and sweat seemed to be a minor inconvinience.

What impressed me most then was the range of idioms these fellas had sythesized into their music, ranging from boatman songs from the Narmada valley (Ma Rewa) to Syrian Christian Aaramic hymns (Kandisa) from Kerala. Given this dynamic range of themes and influences I think they are very similar to Nitin Swahney, another musician to whose music I turn to often.

Then there was the baul(***) like vibe dripping from the bearded madman singing most of vocals, Rahul Ram, with a bass guitar in his hand instead of an ektaara. I went backstage after they had finished playing their gig (I am usually anti fawning, anti groupie) as a Kazhak rock band called Roksonaki (I am not kidding! Their sound is cool too if you can dig throat singing) was setting up to play the next set , and shook hands with Ram and other band member, and told them how much I dug their music.

Back then, I suppose, Indian Ocean was still quite obscure for I couldn't find their music anywhere in Cyber-ia either to listen to or to buy. But four years later things have, very deservedly I must say, changed. So here is the music video of Jhini, the title song of their latest album. You can also click to listen to tracks from their previous two albums: the superb Kandisa (alternate link from Google cache), and Desert Rain. You should also listen to the soundtrack IO composed for a Bollywood movie, Black Friday, with a great song 'Bandeh'.

Oh, the next day after this encounter, I also managed to see Yo-Yo Ma jam with other musicians in shorts!

***Osho (the cult guru?) wrote this rather excellent article on the subject of bauls. The Silk Road Festival had bauls too from Bangladesh.

I came back here straight away after Vivek directed me to the blog where you left a comment, S! Indian Ocean came to Philly last night so went to their gig (again) and had the first seat in the middle and had a blast! Wished you were there, too!