I don't rightfully know where I came across this. There are multiple spellings of our mystery-ish musician's name (Rabindra Goswami) and there's at least one much more famous person, an endocrinologist, with the same name. Multiple minutes spent googling this delectable treat in "raga" led me to the certainty that it's a bootleg (the audience coughing throughout initially pushed me in that direction, truthfully) and, if I wasn't listening to it right now, would also have led me to believe it didn't exist. This one's not on RYM, and they're not going to let it on RYM, guise.
As for the music, I'm pretty sure it's just solo sitar for the first half, with the addition of tabla for the second and I have no idea why it resonates with me this much. It's easily in the top three or so pieces of Hindustani or Carnatic music I've yet to hear, but I really lack the vocabulary and context to access why the fiddly-bits in this part make me ecstatic and those deep THWONKS later on make my bowels levitate. But then if one needs theory to appreciate music, then I'm almost equally at a loss to explain my love of Cecil Taylor or Carly Rae Jepsen (except I'm obviously not.)
The album (bootleg?) is one long live track, "Pancham-Malkauns," with a clear division between the two tunes, it's a minute over forty minutes, and it just rings my cells like bells. I hope this isn't Orientalist, but I imagine the music as some kind of Star Trek/Korra science-magic purification device being slowly drawn over my body and removing all the nasty build-ups and hang-ups and poison from my being, like instant auditory detox. I think basically the same thing about Baby Dee's music, but this doesn't have the inexhaustible well of infinite sorrows that her music draws from. The "Malkauns" half honestly bangs like a mofo - it's dancier than most dance and funkier than a lot of funk, but it still gives off gobs of goodwill and hope and stuff. Every zing! and fruuuum! and tot-tot! flies straight and true to your ears as messengers of both peace and kick-ass. FIVE STAR SHIT.
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