This first ever solo recording by the British Bengali pianist is an arresting work suffused with enormous feeling, and bursts of surprising delicacy and power.
A Mercury Prize nominee, fixture of Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra and collaborator with the likes of British jazz great Courtney Pine and Czech bassist George Mraz, Rahman inevitably shines on her own, nodding to the canon with a languid take on Ellington’s A Single Petal of a Rose and lending requisite gravitas to Abdullah Ibrahim’s Sunset in Blue.
Of her own wide-ranging compositions, the boogie-licious Zantastic, the darting Red Squirrel and Kar Milono Chao Birohi, a poignant exploration of Rahman’s roots, stand out, while other more subtle tracks unfold, bud-like, with each listen.
(Manushi Records)