Rakhi Singh – Quarry EP

Bedroom Community

As often happens with these things, Rakhi Singh was a new name on me and then her Manchester Collective popped up for this year’s proms, putting in a rare performance of establishment-baiting Julius Eastman.

Having checked out some of her other work, she’s clearly comfortable sitting with the establishment classical world — and there’s a cracking rendition of Bach‘s Chaconne for solo violin you should check out if that’s your kind of thing, but her Quarry EP is a lot less likely to appear on Radio 3 though.

And that’s not to say that the music is in any way deficient — this has a depth of composition and consideration with a light and playful feel. Closer “For Giri (Nüss)” has almost a bedroom-looper’s touch to it, looping vocals and drifting between tonalities with an improvised feel. But this isn’t ill-considered or lightweight — there’s enough violinist’s detail and care to ensure that.

Opener “Kuda’i” does a wonderful job of illustrating exquisite playerly detail — timbral arpeggios playing near the bridge, a padding of very rigorous trills. The names and music reference Indian traditions, but this isn’t particularly informed by either Western or Indian traditions. Which kind of scuppers my temptation to refer to those trills as gamaka or to refer to the glissandi in “Dhura” as meend. That is to say, Singh is using whatever effects she can to produce a curious and inviting music that’s not so much “merging” traditions as potentially forging new ones.

Only mild criticism from me — and it’s a good one so far as criticisms go — is that this is only a short EP (twelve minutes or so) and I could listen to these tracks in fuller form. But here’s hoping that these are an appetite-whetter for some longer pieces.

-Kev Nickells-