Jonathan Fitoussi / Ariel Kalma - The Encyclopedia of Civilizations vol. 3: India

Beautifully presented split release featuring French composer Jonathan Fitoussi and new age legend, Ariel Kalma, which had me drifting into an unexpected daysleep on first listen (double teaming with a two day hangover may i add). It was Kalma's involvement that attracted me to this having been first switched on to his music via RVNG's excellent career retrospective a few years back, though both artists make sterling contributions here. Kalma's past studying composition in India provides a fitting basis for the concept, and the first of his two tracks was actually conceived back in 1975 while living out there, typifying his deeply spiritual ethnomusicology in its mediative, patient construction. The second track combines past and (almost) present by editing two tracks together, one from 1979 and the other from 2017, recalling a little of the Wasp Happening collab with Robert Aiki and Aubrey Lowe, and certainly a good deal of the more devotional aspects of Laaraji and Arica. And the Mills crossover with Pandit Pran Nath offers an obvious precedent. Fitoussi’s piece was composed live on pipe organ, and at 20+ minutes long with its deep timbral resonance and reliance on natural reverb had me thinking of Mary Jane Leech's Pipe Dream and Catherine Christer Hennix's Equal Temperament. No bad thing, either! Perfect stuff for when you're in need of some solid self-reflection.