Album: Beyond Skin
Artist: Nitin Sawhney
Born: Rochester, Kent
Released: September 1999
Genre: Downtempo
The late 90s was a great time for music reflecting the British Asian experience, from Cornershop's When I Was Born For The 7th Time to Talvin Singh's OK and the work of Nitin Sawhney. While Cornershop hailed from Preston and were inspired by the post-punk mayhem of The Fall, Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney were from southern England and influenced by dance music, such as drum n' bass and trip hop, which they blended with Indian classical music. Singh was a consummate tabla player, but grew irritated with its growing use without the "correct tuning" and criticised British Asian label, Outcaste (which released Singh's records), for being too "ghettoised". That's an unfair label to level at Sawhney, whose influences extended far beyond Indian music, taking in flamenco, jazz and hip hop. Sawhney's music is also highly political and spiritual, and Beyond Skin addresses issues of identity and nuclear weapons. Homelands is the perfect example of Sawhney's mastery of contrasting styles, from flamenco guitar to Qawwali (spiritual Sufi poetry). Homelands also contains hard-hitting lyrics in Brazilian Portuguese as the song closes ("Frágil nessa terra / fácil derrubou", "This fragile earth / is easily broken"), a reference to the dangers of nuclear war between India and Pakistan (snippets of news reports on the issue appear throughout the album).
Sawhney rarely takes on vocal responsibilities, allowing for a diverse array of singers, including samba specialist Nina Miranda on Homelands and Christina Gray on the downtempo electronica of Letting Go. This song is very much of its time, and sounds like it could have appeared on Morcheeba's Big Calm, or any number of late 90s chill out albums. On opener, Broken Skin, Sanchita Farruque provides the soulful vocals, which have a distinctive acid jazz flavour, another 90s musical craze, made famous by the Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai and James Taylor Quartet (with whom Sawhney toured). The Pilgrim has a trip hop feel with Dream Warriors rapper Spek taking on the vocals, on a song about how the communities we live in determine our identity ("Life is like a puzzle not pieced yet / might take a village ever long to see that / don't break your ties with my pal, compromise / and the kid you wanna be, you can be that"). Tides features great percussion work from Marque Gilmore, while Nadia and Immigrant are two of the record's highlights. Nadia is wonderfully evocative, featuring Hindi singer Swati Natekar, while Immigrant again features Sanchita Farruque, along with Bengali vocalist Jayanta Bose. This is a powerful moment on the record, right from the opening voice sample of an immigrant who speaks of his experience of seeing attractive pictures of England and Kew Gardens before emigrating. Sawhney grew up seeing the ugly face of racism, so this was his chance to look at the issue of immigration from a new perspective. Side 2 isn't quite as consistently strong as the first, but Beyond Skin makes for a rousing closer. Sawhney has gone on to collaborate with various artists, including Paul McCartney, and has also worked in TV (notably with his friend Sanjeev Bhaskar on Goodness Gracious Me) and film (his visual album, Prophesy, is brilliant), but Beyond Skin remains his finest album.
The late 90s was a great time for music reflecting the British Asian experience, from Cornershop's When I Was Born For The 7th Time to Talvin Singh's OK and the work of Nitin Sawhney. While Cornershop hailed from Preston and were inspired by the post-punk mayhem of The Fall, Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney were from southern England and influenced by dance music, such as drum n' bass and trip hop, which they blended with Indian classical music. Singh was a consummate tabla player, but grew irritated with its growing use without the "correct tuning" and criticised British Asian label, Outcaste (which released Singh's records), for being too "ghettoised". That's an unfair label to level at Sawhney, whose influences extended far beyond Indian music, taking in flamenco, jazz and hip hop. Sawhney's music is also highly political and spiritual, and Beyond Skin addresses issues of identity and nuclear weapons. Homelands is the perfect example of Sawhney's mastery of contrasting styles, from flamenco guitar to Qawwali (spiritual Sufi poetry). Homelands also contains hard-hitting lyrics in Brazilian Portuguese as the song closes ("Frágil nessa terra / fácil derrubou", "This fragile earth / is easily broken"), a reference to the dangers of nuclear war between India and Pakistan (snippets of news reports on the issue appear throughout the album).
Sawhney rarely takes on vocal responsibilities, allowing for a diverse array of singers, including samba specialist Nina Miranda on Homelands and Christina Gray on the downtempo electronica of Letting Go. This song is very much of its time, and sounds like it could have appeared on Morcheeba's Big Calm, or any number of late 90s chill out albums. On opener, Broken Skin, Sanchita Farruque provides the soulful vocals, which have a distinctive acid jazz flavour, another 90s musical craze, made famous by the Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai and James Taylor Quartet (with whom Sawhney toured). The Pilgrim has a trip hop feel with Dream Warriors rapper Spek taking on the vocals, on a song about how the communities we live in determine our identity ("Life is like a puzzle not pieced yet / might take a village ever long to see that / don't break your ties with my pal, compromise / and the kid you wanna be, you can be that"). Tides features great percussion work from Marque Gilmore, while Nadia and Immigrant are two of the record's highlights. Nadia is wonderfully evocative, featuring Hindi singer Swati Natekar, while Immigrant again features Sanchita Farruque, along with Bengali vocalist Jayanta Bose. This is a powerful moment on the record, right from the opening voice sample of an immigrant who speaks of his experience of seeing attractive pictures of England and Kew Gardens before emigrating. Sawhney grew up seeing the ugly face of racism, so this was his chance to look at the issue of immigration from a new perspective. Side 2 isn't quite as consistently strong as the first, but Beyond Skin makes for a rousing closer. Sawhney has gone on to collaborate with various artists, including Paul McCartney, and has also worked in TV (notably with his friend Sanjeev Bhaskar on Goodness Gracious Me) and film (his visual album, Prophesy, is brilliant), but Beyond Skin remains his finest album.
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