Drum-Believable (2007)
13 tracks, 62 minutes
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The Dhol Foundation is a many-headed beast, all spanning from that large, loud and powerful Punjabi barrel drum, the dhol. TDF is a school, an educational curriculum, a stable of session musicians and a storming live band. They also have a fair handful of albums under the TDF name too, and that's where the organisation's founder and figurehead Johnny Kalsi lets loose, invites his friends and experiments with as much music as he can in ways that would not necessarily be compatible with a live performance from a dhol troupe. Drum-Believable follows on the work from TDF's debut album Big Drum, Small World with a set of dhol-led world dubtronica, although bringing in an even more eclectic mix of senses and styles.
The first three tracks form a medley that sets the tone for the whole thing. The first piece 'Palace of Love' starts with the inimitable voice and sarangi fiddle of Ustad Sultan Khan before being joined by swelling strings, powerful dhol lines, jazzy acoustic guitar, bansuri flute, tabla and spoken word with all sorts of mystical synth drones holding it all together. It's all quite Nitin Sawhney-esque. Then is 'Simply H', a gentle Celtic fiddle piece played by Máiréad Nesbitt. It's short and sweet, and its unmetered nature makes it act a bit like an alap in preparation for the third track – TDF's biggest banger, 'After The Rain'. That one is basically a throwback to Johnny's days in the Afro Celt Sound System (before they reformed again, with Johnny stepping up as a co-frontman). It's based around a reel played by Nesbitt, with dance-dub bass electronics and – of course – the thumping of the massed dhol drums. It's great on the record, and even more powerful live, I've yet to see a performance of the piece that doesn't end with everyone in attendance pogoing around like mad.
After a globe-spanning opening trio of pieces that dwell deeply on the nature of sounds and timbres, remaining deliberate and precise from the slow openings to the bouncing at the end…TDF take it somewhere completely different, with the out-and-out bhangra party track 'Aja Nach Lai'. And so on goes the whole album. Styles are chucked around for fun, usually (but not always) with a dance/dubtronica focus, and usually (but not always) with more dhols than you can shake a stick at. It's all quite reminiscent of Transglobal Underground at their most exciting – and they're another band in which Johnny Kalsi has played a crucial role over the years.
For all its great music, I've also got to mention an important aspect of Drum-Believable - that title. It's another bottom-notch pun from Johnny Kalsi that so far also includes groaners such as Drums and Roses and the aforementioned Big Drum Small World. I for one am sad that he's never yet followed through with the threat to name a future album Drumblebees. Coming to our ears in 2020, maybe.
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