TONGUES IN TREES - November 7

Indie dream pop and Indian rhythms collide in the band Tongues In Trees – John Schaefer, Soundcheck (WNYC)

From their first musical meeting, Samita Sinha, Sunny Jain and Grey McMurray were a uniquely aligned trio.  Each a lauded composer in their own right, longtime collaborators Sinha and Jain bring their distinctive hybrid musical voices alongside McMurray’s avant new music textures.  Their collectively realized compositions reach past the limits of style and geography to express the all encompassing ecstatic; accessible and challenging, familiar and alien. The band draws from North Indian classical and folk music, sonic texturing, propulsive beats and multiple languages to create a musical vocabulary of their own.  Free and noise elements serve taut lyrical images, through-composed forms grow out of improvised structures, old traditions are draped with new shapes, not to throw either into stark relief, but rather because both new and old are always wearing each others’ clothes, asking for entry from the other. File under: Sonic Youth meets Brian Eno meets Sufi trance.