Ananda Shankar

There’s a yearning, mystical quality to this recent reissue of rare material as a two-album, one-disc deal (1977’s Missing You and 1978’s A Musical Discovery of India). The melancholy seems rooted in the Shankar dynasty: Ananda’s father, Uday (a beloved dancer in India), apparently died around the time his son composed Missing You. Ananda Shankar, who recorded with Jimi Hendrix in the ’60s in L.A., experienced new popularity in the ’90s when his sitar funk versions of Stones and Doors hits reached a new generation. Shankar also pioneered the kind of Eastern-Western explorations that influenced artists like Talvin Singh. On this collection, we hear plaintive North Indian compositions like "Baba,” "Lonely” and "Almora” from Missing You. On Musical Discovery, the bluesy lament is replaced with standouts like the up-tempo "Kaziranga Beat,” which blends frantic drum breaks and polyrhythms and the most urgent sitar riffs on either record. Other highlights include the contemplative "Akbar’s Jewels” and street market party jam "Brindavan Revel.”