Comfort Food
Kiran Ahluwalia
Independent KM2024-1 (kiranmusic.com/music)
The idea that multiculturalism can become a bloated kind of tribalism is not a stretch. You only need to experience what happens when the serpent of nationalism strikes at the heel of rainbowed societies that have long since lived harmoniously. Kiran Ahluwalia sings of this phenomenon, born of her painful experience living in India, and Canada as well. As she lifts her voice to a characteristic, existential wail, painting a disturbingly beautiful tapestry woven from the threads of conflict in the universal confrontation between religious faith and political torment.
She calls her album of songs Comfort Food because she lends her poignant voice to each song, the heart of which beats most affectingly in slow pulsating movements which she shapes in the doleful blend of Sufi arias made up of impassioned lyrics. As on previous albums masterfully created with her husband, the extraordinary guitarist and producer Rez Abbassi plays with meticulous diligence, placing his focussed, wailing sound, velvety fluency and acrobatic vibrancy at the service of his wife’s eloquently sculpted music.
Ahluwalia treads nary a wrong step, bringing together Abbassi and a full complement of brilliant Canadian journeymen including multi-instrumentalist Louis Simao, accordionist Robbie Grunwald, bassist Rich Brown, tablachi Ravi Naimpally, drummer Davide DeRenzo and percussionists Mark Duggan and Joaquin Nunez. Every light-fingered performer is keenly responsive to Ahluwalia’s outpouring of lyricism, especially on the wonderfully mystical Ban Koulchi Redux co-written with Algerian Souad Massi.
