David Rothenberg/R. A. Ramamani

Recorded live at the Sixth World Wilderness Congress in Bangalore, India, in October 1998, this unique collaboration opens with three ecstatic ragas by valist R. A. Ramamani with the Karnataka College of Percussion. Ragas one and three are animated by her vocal abandon and dynamic interaction with the drummers and Malini Mohan's violin. Rothenberg's elegant clarinet and spoken word performances animate "Nalungiaq" and "Tlingit Death Songs" with vivid samples of Antarctic Weddell seals creating an uncanny choir that can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. These seal samples threaten to steal the show until Rothenberg and the singer join forces for a unique collaboration documented in the final four performances. In their final concert version of "Lament for the Vanishing," this duo achieves the kind of passionate rapport promised by the most powerful moments in their solo sets.