Rahul Sharma’s Confluence III – Review
Confluence III – A Meeting By The Nile is, as the name partially suggests, an Indian-Egyptian fusion album and the next in the Confluence series of fusion albums centered around Rahul Sharma. The Egyptian part of the album comes from Georges Kazazian, player of an instrument called the Egyptian Oud, which sounds like a deeper Sarod and looks like this.
The first track, titled Marhaba Jaanam is actually a full-on pop song by Sunidhi Chauhan, with some vaguely Arabic sounds provided intermittently by Sharma and Kazazian. Sunidhi performs in a shrill voice that I didn’t quite know she had in her, and not always to the song’s advantage. Presumably, Marhaba Jaanam is meant to be the star track of the album – a representative of the fusion between the santoor and the oud. The problem is it sounds like a pop remix with too much percussion – which, to my annoyance, blocks out the gentler sounds of instruments like the santoor and the oud. The album then goes and overdoes it by including an Instrumental version and a Remix (!) version of Marhaba Jaanam. Pyramids, Sunrise On The Sphinx and Nights in Cairo follow the same format – more emphasis on the percussion than on the fusion.
Listen to Marhaba Jaanam
Sheesha in the Jazz and Taj Mahal use less percussion than usual, and there is some breathing space given to the instruments. Unfortunately, it is also too slow to really appreciate the talents of the musicians or to stay with the song long enough to soak it in.
Listen to Taj Mahal
In my review of Confluence I and II, I noted that Confluence II went darker and more electronica than Confluence I. Despite losing Clayderman and adding on a classical player from across the ocean, the electronica-style fusion continues to take over in Confluence III to the point that it is difficult detect much genuine Egyptian-ness in the album as a whole.
To wash out that vague feeling of elevator music, I’d highly suggest listening to the piece below from when Rahul Sharma did fusion of the kind that you could rock to.
Listen to an edited version of Garhwal Himalayas from the album ‘Mountain Trail’
