Big Drum: Small World

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN): 10588

Producer	Johnny Kalsi
Engineer

Dhol Foundation includes: Johnny Kalsi (vocals, keyboards, dhol, tabla, programming); Vijay Prakash (vocals, dhol); Shin DCS (vocals); Sunil Kalyan (dholak, tabla); Karma Chopra (dholak); Rajesh Rajbhatt (tabla, duff, shaker); Parv (tabla); Dips, Bobby, Yash (dhol).
Additional personnel includes: Natacha Atlas (vocals); Gavin Lombos (electric guitar); Nawazish Ali Khan (violin); Nigel Eaton (hurdy gurdy); Ulhas Bhapat (santoor); Salim Merchant (keyboards, string synthesizer, programming); Paul Timothy, Sumeet Chopra, Juggy (keyboards); Prem (bass); Martin Russell (programming).
Engineers include: Sulaiman Merchant, Chris Britton, Gavin Lombos.
Personnel: Johnny Kalsi (vocals, keyboards, drums, tabla, programming); Natacha Atlas (vocals); Nigel Eaton (hurdy-gurdy); Nawazish Ali Khan (violin); Papa Juggy (keyboards); Sunil Kalyan (tabla); Martin Russell (programming).
Recording information: Blue Studios, Mumbai, India; Intimate Studios, London, England; Jasmin Cafe; Jasmin Cafe 1; KC Studios, Reading, England; Studio 69, B'ham; Wired, Reading, England.
Arranger: Johnny Kalsi.
The dhol is a large hand-held drum that's deep, ringing tone is a key component of bhangra, a traditional Punjabi folk music that has itself grown and mutated into one of the key elements of London's Asian underground dance music scene. You hear the dhol thundering and rippling beneath singles by such eminent Asian underground artists as Talvin Singh, Joi, and the Asian Dub Foundation, and also in the music of the Afro Celt Sound System, whose drummer moonlights as a master teacher of the dhol and runs a school called the Dhol Foundation. Recording here for the first time under that moniker, Johnny Kalsi delivers a fascinating and funky program of modern dance music that draws heavily on bhangra and other Indian influences while at the same time keeping the ambience pleasant and dreamy. Occasionally things get just a little bit too pleasant and a little too dreamy, and the music teeters dangerously on the edge of soporific new age-ism. But that happens rarely, and just when you think you're going to fall asleep -- during the first two and a half minutes of "Iridian," for example -- Kalsi snaps you back to attention with a funky breakbeat or a bracing splash of frantic drum'n'bass. If you're an Asian Dub Foundation fan, you might find Big Drum: Small World a bit on the tame side; but if you love Afro Celt Sound System and Joi, this album will stay in your CD player for days. ~ Rick Anderson

CMJ (7/30/01, p.22) - "...There's plenty of electronic trickery, beats and loops...but also plenty of melody, as it pages through the textures of Bhangra and Bollywood..."
NAPRA Review (09-10/01, p.82) - "...Rhythms, instrumentation, and vocals are mixed with intense imagination--enough to please any world music aficionado, to say nothing of those who dig a great BIG DRUM sound..."
Mojo (Publisher) (10/01, p.122) - "...Think electro-bhangra, then throw in a little Celt thing..."