Jayanthi Kumaresh is one of India's most revered veena players. She leads her own world music fusion group called Indian Spice, but on
Mysterious Duality, the music is built on traditional South Indian modes, although they are interpreted in
Kumaresh's own unique style. Outside of India, people are more familiar with the sitar and sarod. The veena has a sound somewhere between those two, but with a deep resonance that's closer to the sound of the sarod. On this album,
Kumaresh went into the studio with seven different veenas and laid down tracks playing lead, rhythm, drone, and percussive parts. "Strings with No Ends" is a tanam, improvised on the spot, in a slow meditative mode. Her long sliding lead lines sounds as twangy as a Nashville guitar, augmented by bluesy bent notes, and rippling accents played by stroking the instruments sympathetic strings. The tempo slowly accelerates and the piece ends with a flurry of slurred notes and tabla-like rhythm accents, all supplied by the veena. The title track features a simple repeated figure of deep bass notes and chiming, bell-like tones beneath a slowly unfolding solo in the mid-range. Her husband, R. Kumaresh, composed "Waiting at Dusk" on the violin to accommodate her violin's melody which produced long, measured, melodic lines full of rich overtones. A simple, sliding bass veena line provides a throbbing pulse to support her exceptional improvisations. "Wandering in Dimensions," composed by her nephew Abhishek Raghuram, has a slight western feel; portions of the suite wouldn't sound out of place in a Bollywood spy thriller. ~ j. poet