Blueprint

Album Review

Continuing her exotic journey through the wilds of improvisational territory, Suphala finds yet new ways to unite East and West, and classical and modern music — all within an electronica context on Blueprint, her third album. Breathtakingly unique, at times wonderfully idiosyncratic, yet never self-indulgent, she's not alone in such experimentations, but few outside the DiN stable display such skill and originality. Genres lose their distinctions in Suphala's hands, her tablas forever shifting and reshaping the pieces, while her melodies are equally amorphous, flitting across variations and traveling down tangential roads, as the guest players, singers, and producers wind along their own paths. Each one of the tracks contains its own magic. The glorious "Underwater City," for example, is a sublime meeting between Suphala's classical East and the string players' classical West. "Seventeen Birds Outside My Window" is jazz-fired, with only a haunting keyboard line giving the piece an Eastern tinge, while "The Blank Page" is best described as ragga-prog thanks to Harper Simon's fiery guitar. As with all the guests within, his work melds seamlessly into Suphala's own musical vision. Vernon Reid supplies the guitar on "Auramatic," so distorted by King Britt's fabulous hip-hop mix and production that it's barely recognizable as such, while Furor Thin's stream-of-consciousness rap courses overhead. Edie Brickell offers up lovely vocals on two other numbers — the cinematic, synth-laden "Music Like a Memory" and the pretty, ambient-laced "I Feel Awake Even Though This Is a Dream." Many of the numbers slide toward ambience, notably the mesmerizing "Unwind You," but elsewhere more insistent rhythms rule, as on the quirky opening track "Maybe There's a Place Where Someday Just You and I Can Go" (also presented later in the track listing with a version featuring flutist Rakesh Chaurasi). Full of surprises, Blueprint is a phenomenal achievement, shimmering with creative frisson and evocative melodies, underpinned by extraordinary musicianship not only from Suphala herself, but from all involved.