The Ravi Shankar Collection: Sound Of The Sitar

Deep and Dark:
I find this to be among the heaviest (emotionally) of Ravi Shankar's recordings. Satisfyingly deep and dark. He sits on some very low notes, much longer and lower than usual. I only play this disc when I am prepared to seriously listen in a quiet, meditative state. Recording and production quality are immaculate.

Cryptic, complex, dark, and uplfting at the same time:
Im writing reviews in search of broadening my musical horizons so to speak. its time to ditch the blink and killswitch and move on to the wide world of music. I grew up in Washington so i do love the alternative music. I hope i don't end up in the same category either. Its very hard for me to write a review on this artist. How do i rank something in which i dont really know much about. but the more and more i hear it the more and more i understand it my own way and that is what art is all about. in many ways this CD is like a sacred old recipe passed down from generation to generation. youre not going to be into it in the first listen and you cant just put it on and expect to absorb it. Instead, it needs attention and nourishment. i like to sit somewhere and just get lost... i think that is the only way to really get into the music. I first heard of this artist when my father bought a bootleg video of Concert for Bangladesh and Ravi blew me away. many of that same style of playing is in this CD but it also has other fascets. "Raga Malkouns: Alap" seems to be an introduction to "Raga Malkouns: Jor"(although it is a long introduction). it might be the hardest piece to play because there seems to be no repetition except for the background instruments. the lead instrument at first is very dark a low with the occassional high pitched note. this atmosphere paints a picture of some warrior that has fallen on dark times in his town. as the song moves along the high notes become clearer and more apparent showcasing the warrior struggling and making progress and after a long bout of that the instruments get low again showing signs of failure. "Raga Malkouns: Jor" is a fight. there are two main instruments fighting. the high sitar and another instrument. the sitar pleads and kicks and screams but the is held down. until it finally climaxes and both intruments rise above and join together making beautiful music. " Tala Sawari" showcases more tabla chops more than anything else. and the final "Pahari Dhun " puts everything together in a more improvish style. the last song being the climax of the whole album. every song has beginnings and ends they dont view time as a hinderance thus making each song extra long. this music might mean something totally different to somebody else but no one can deny that it is complete. The onl gripe i had was that it wasnt well organized some songs had nothing to do with each other thus the complete CD package was a little discombobulated.