myBindi.com Galitcha Concert Review
March 30th, 2003 concert at Hugh's Room in Toronto

After fifteen minutes of peering into the television screen at the banal donut place where I had to eat dinner, I was left with that feeling of depression that inevitably sets in on the rare occasions when I watch TV these days. I didn’t really expect that the band I was about to see would be such a great antidote to the numbness. Galitcha is a group from Ottawa, rooted in South Asian music, but, true to their name (which means “tapestry”) they incorporate a wide range of instruments, filling their performances with a deep sense of diverse life.

The concert took place in the west end of the city at Hugh’s Place, a small but cosy and hospitable venue. Galitcha kicked off with a message from harmonium-player Chris Maclean, reminding us in a politically non-intrusive way that we live in troubled times, and so the band began with quite an uplifting bhajan for peace, “Tumre Bina Hamra Koi Nahin” before getting into the rest of their material. The evening was a good mix of Punjabi folk, filmi covers, and original pieces. Some of the best stuff was instrumental; for instance one particularly enchanting piece was “Dervish’s Tale,” dominated by Chris’ strummings on a rather exotic (Western!) instrument called the Appalachian dulcimer, which sounds more or less like a thousand flamenco guitars all playing approximately the same tune simultaneously. Played against the backdrop of Kuljit Sodhi’s dholki, it infused some magic into the dreary urban night.

Guest tablachi Ravi Naimpally added his tabla-tapping skills to the ensemble for the first half as we settled down and listened. It was a pleasant surprise to hear a rendition of the classic “Ik Pyar Ka Naghma Hai” in the offing, sung competently by Kuljit. I thought his voice sounded a bit controlled and hesitant at points during the slower songs, though he fared much better on faster, more raucous pieces such as “Holi Rung Lai,” which had the audience clapping rhythmically throughout the room as Linsey Wellman on an unidentified wind instrument droned it like a shehnai. Linsey’s pet piece was another interesting one, “Raag Yaman in Kingsfold,” a meeting between an English folksong and an Indian raag.

Singers Kuljit and Chris sounded very different in their styles, but nevertheless came together impressively. Kuljit, who studies under Vinney Bidhe, sounded best on lively Punjabi songs, whereas Chris sounded very nice on slow Hindi/Urdu songs such as the lovely “Tujay Dekha,” a classic filmi song by Shankar Jaikishan. Though Chris’ knowledge of Hindi/Urdu is limited, she did an amazing job singing phonetically, which didn’t necessarily sound one hundred percent authentic, but rather created an entirely new aesthetic which is difficult to characterise. It was a siren-like language with fully comprehensible Urdu words, but which seemed at the same time to approximate a Celtic language such as Gaelic. As she sang the chorus, which ended, “bas itnii khataa hai; aur khataa kyaa,” it was remarkable enough to hear that she pronounced the “kh” in “khataa” like a proper Urdu-speaker, whereas Kuljit gave it the Hindi pronunciation of aspirated “k.”

What was really astonishing, though, was to hear her sing an actual couplet, beginning, “shiisha-i-dil meñ chhupaa hai o sitam-gar teraa pyaar” (“Tyrant, your love is hidden in the glass of the heart.”) This was a point of fascination for me. There’s always a certain exoticism to “World Music,” for instance this band, rooted in South Asian styles, playing for a mainly white audience certainly benefited to some extent from the foreignness of their music. On the other hand, Chris’ singing subverted this in a dazzling way; for audience members of non-South Asian descent Kuljit the Indian may have been the exotic centre of focus, while for me it was Chris with her Eastern-Western voice and her hybrid pronunciation. In any case, “Tujay Dekha” was on many counts the best piece of the night, with the Chinese fiddle and flute providing a striking counterpoint.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the lively Punjabi folk song “Shanma Ainya,” which, with its booming dhols, finally got a couple of brave souls dancing bhangra-style (including your humble reviewer; I found quite a groovy uncle-ji for a partner). All in all, a good way to escape the gloom that can descend on you these days.