REVIEW: VARIOUS - NASHA RECORDS VOL3

Format: CD Album
Label: Nasha Records
Released: April 2009

While their tunes may have often uased the same tempo templates, acts like the Nasha Records stable, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and their contemporaries always stood conspicuously to one side of mainstream drum and bass.

But while there are still some slight echoes of the Indian classical music and tabla-heavy percussion that set the Asian Beats scene apart, this third volume of Nasha's catalogue comp is much closer in spirit to current movements in d&b and dubstep.

Sukh Night's 'Knightlife' is a wonderfully terrifying heavyweight bass workout ably equipped to rock the most purist dubstep dancefloor. Likewise the wonky charm of his other offering here, 'Cop Killer', all claustrophic gongs, rave swirls and choppy Bollywood soundtrack snippets. Excellent.

It's a similar affair with The Nasha Experience, who contribute the lion's share of tracks. They manage to retain their Eastern flavourings but harness the power of some proper d&b polyrythmic nastiness too. Again, any of these would sit quite happily in the mix with the latest Clipz or Chase & Status dubplate.

The more quirky moments, like 'Wrong Number' by Gunmaster G9 & Pyarelal and 'City Heat' by Shandy, are probably the best, but throughout Nasha Vol3 there's plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.
4/5