Listening to Philtre for the first time, I wondered if Nitin Sawhney is a cultural schizophrenic. The way his seventh album moves between Indian classical, traditional folk, blues, Bengali folk, drum ’n’ bass, traditional flamenco, old soul, and R&B, can you really blame me? After listening to it a few more times, though, I grudgingly realized that the beauty of his latest album, a radical departure from his previous politically bent works, lies in its moving and energetic journey through global culture.
Sawhney never sings on his tracks — rather, with some help from Spanish collective Ojos de Brujo, Jazzanova’s Vikter Duplaix, Bollywood vocalist Reena Bhardwaj, Ninja Tunes’ Fink and many other artists (including his own mother!), he has created an album that takes the listener from a shadowy blues club in Mississippi to the endless energy and furious heat of a Spanish fiesta to a glitzy Bollywood film set.
Sawhney’s passion for DJing can also be seen in Philtre, as all the tracks’ intimate, emotional feel are combined with infectious beats. “Journey” features the smooth and deep, breathy vocals of Duplaix and builds into a heavy drum-and-bass track, interweaving rhythms of voice and instruments playing off each other. From the ambitious, multilingual mix of tracks in Philtre, it is clear that Sawhney is one of the most versatile worldly musicans today.
