'Tuned In' review: Continents collide on 'Common Ground'

Indo-Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia teams up with Mali band Tinariwen for “Aam Zameen: Common Ground,” and indeed they find common ground in their music, though their homelands are world’s apart.

The singer, now based in New York City, brings a distinct Indian sound to her delivery, stretching out notes and sending them into soaring undulations. The tabla surfaces in the majority of arrangements, re-enforcing the air of the Asian subcontinent.

Meanwhile, Tinariwen adds “Saharan desert blues” to the mix, blurring genre specifications that are further muddied by recurrent trumpet and harmonium as well as ample Western nuances that sound alternately like Americana and folk.

While it’s hard to pin down the precise classification of this engaging sound — the generic term “world music” will have to do — Ahluwalia consistently emerges as the beguiling focal point.

“Aam Zameen: Common Ground” gets the most mileage out of refashioning “Mustt Mustt” by the late Pakistani icon Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The song is presented first as an invigorating opener driven by clapped rhythm and then later as a meditative mid-album break and then again in a hypnotic (borderline numbing), extended closer that goes on for almost 9 minutes.

The song’s lyrics — interpreted in the CD insert with English lines such, “Each breath is bliss for the one who is in love” — are inspiring, though elsewhere “Aam Zameen” explores darker territory, including on the ethereal “Saffar” (“I am myself an obstruction in my own path”), the fluid “Matadjem — Waris Shah” (“Look at your Punjab today/Fields are lined with corpses/And blood fills the river Chenab”) and the crunchy “Lakeerai” (“How long have I tried for sleep to rescue me”).

Clearly this eclectic release has limited appeal for the Western mainstream. But the appropriate audience is sure to find it.

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of five)

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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