David Dalle
Thursday May 13th, 2021 with David Dalle
Breaking musical boundaries: Brooklyn Raga Massive's Quarantine Dreams; latest from Ballaké Sissoko; William Parker; Land of Kush.

Today's show is largely structured around selections from the brand new release from the incredible Brooklyn Raga Massive. Brooklyn Raga Massive is a music collective based in Brooklyn, New York. Their performance is rooted in the idea of Raga in Indian classical music as "a set of melodic frameworks for improvisation and composition" which "is fluid, colorful, and highly improvisational, requiring deep listening and respect between musicians." BRM comprises over 50 musicians from many different backgrounds and it mixes those styles and instruments into Raga-inspired music. Their latest release "Quarantine Dreams" is a collection of recordings with pieces for small ensembles, made over 2020 during the worst of the pandemic in New York City. It was an effort to keep the musicians connected when they couldn't meet in person. The result is an extremely diverse selection of intimate and beautiful music with unusual combinations such as kora and tabla with electronics, or throat singing and sitar. The album "Quarantine Dreams" was just released, with thoughts of the pandemic raging in India. ALL proceeds from the album will be going to the charity OxygenForIndia (https://oxygenforindia.org/). The nearly two hour album can be purchased with your donation through Bandcamp: https://brooklynragamassive.bandcamp.com/album/quarantine-dreams Along with selections from "Quarantine Dreams", we will hear some other new music and a large slice of "The Big Mango", the 2013 album from Montrealer Sam Shalabi's experimental and cross cultural music collective "Land of Kush", which all fits the wonderful boundary-breaking ethos of Brooklyn Raga Massive.