Bollywood meets the Great White North
Long before economic imperialists began yapping about globalization, innovative musicians from around the world were mixing and matching the aural traditions of East and West.
Toronto's Autorickshaw was one of the first Canadian groups to fuse the traditional music of south India with Western jazz, pop and classical music. Bollywood meets the Great White North.
And with their third album, So the Journey Goes, following the Juno-nominated Four Higher, they remain one of the most exciting.
The group -- featuring vocalist Suba Sankaran, percussionist Ed Hanley, bassist Rich Brown and percussionist Patrick Graham, a replacement for Debashis Sinha who appears on the album -- is joined by bassist George Koller, the Hannaford Silver Band and Elora guitar ace Kevin Breit, among others.
It's virtually impossible to discern where East ends and West begins with many of the songs on So the Journey Goes, even on the wonderfully fresh reading of Leonard Cohen's classic ode to personal freedom Bird on a Wire.
-Robert Reid, The Record Kitchener • Cambridge • Waterloo