California Kirana – Terry Riley, George Brooks and Talvin Singh at King’s Place

This concert, subtitled ‘The West Coast Legacy Of Pran Nath’ always promised to be something special, and so it turned out. The musicians involved are world-class talents individually and the opportunity to capture at least one of the performances as they toured together was not to be missed.

Happily, King’s Place turned out to be an excellent venue in which to record, with plenty of friendly and helpful staff on hand to assist in the set-up, which had to be lightning fast thanks to the Royal College Of Veterinary Surgeons’ graduation ceremony overrunning. Hall 1 sounded great and was full to capacity only half an hour later than billed with an audience eager to enjoy a musical evening of the highest order.

This was the gig that gave rise to the full tour; the original idea being to bring together Minimalism pioneer Riley, 75 earlier this year, and Brooks, his fellow student under guru Pran Nath. Given Riley’s influence on music through his use of interlocking repetitive patterns in works such as In C and A Rainbow In Curved Air the addition of Talvin Singh on percussion is an inspired choice.

The tour ends this weekend at the Royal Northern College Of Music in Manchester and by all accounts each performance has been completely different, so our recording captured only one facet of the chemistry between the three performers. It was an extraordinary show however and one which richly deserved to be preserved. There are plans to release the full recording in due course but for now we are honoured to be able to bring an exclusive taster in the form of this monitor mix excerpt. Enjoy.