CD Review: The Taal Tantra Experience's 'Sixth Sense'

The Taal Tantra Experience
Sixth Sense
Ozella Music

The Germany-based group, The Taal Tantra Experience, is a mesmerizing mix of European and Indian musical worlds coming together to form a dizzying, jazzy core with loads of percussion, improvisation, and fast, vocals. The group includes a plethora of performers--most notably--Debashish Bhattacharya on slide guitar, as well as tabla player and vocalist, Tanmoy Bose; saxophonists, Tilmann Dehnhard and Jan von Klewitz; bassist Max Hughes, and a number of percussions, guitarists, and singers. The result is a fluid mix of swirling incense wafting through the bratwurst-tinged kitchens of European homes. At times, the music is slow, repetitive, and sensually appealing. At other times, the music is tantric, jazzy, lounge-centered, and fusion-focused. The angelic vocals, heady percussion, and various arrangements produce a sound unlike that of the Indian sub-continent. However, the music is chiefly Indian, but created in such a way to evoke the improvisational arm of musical ingenuity. Sixth Sense is a rousing album particularly relevant for the world fusion or jazz listener with a knack for Indo-European sensibilities. ~ Matthew Forss