 
Debashish Battacharya was trained as a vocalist but early on was attracted to the slide guitar. The Indians play lap-steel or Hawaiian guitar and of course use different tuning from Western guitar. The Hawaiian style arrived in Calcutta in 1929 when Tau Moe, a celebrated slack key player from Honolulu performed. I heard some sad slack key guitar in Udaipur and it's good to know there's someone out there doing something creative with this instrument. Debashish goes into raga mode and echoes the classical Indian instruments like the veena, sarod and the sitar in the way he bends notes and creates runs on his multi-stringed instruments. He has actually built three guitars, of different sizes, with more than six strings apiece (one has 22 strings) for performing, and uses all of them on this CD. He added resonating or drone strings to the neck to add sympathetic vibrations, like on a sitar. He has been playing since he was 4, and performing since he was 6. Now in his 40s he is joined by his siblings on tabla and tanpura and the trio create a mellow journey that is very reminiscent of classical Indian raga, but with the more familiar tones of the slide guitar instead of sitar. One criticism might be that it occasionally sounds like endless tuning up, but if you go with the flow it arrives at some transcendental passages as Debashish swoops up and down the neck. Good for meditation or a respite from the Reggaeton! - Alastair Johnston
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Debashish
Bhattacharya