WOMAD

Mynta

From Sweden

While the past decade (the time that the WOMAD UK festival has been held at Reading) has seen musical barriers come down and more acts experimenting with cross-cultural sounds, some people can claim to have been it for far longer. Mynta formed in Sweden in 1979, so their innovative fusion of East and West is now 20 years old, although the line-up, like the music has changed and grown over the years.The group currently includes two classical Indian musicians and four Swedish jazzmen. Fazal Qureshi (tabla) and Shankar Mahadevan (vocal) are steeped in the Indian tradition: Shankar, who joined the band in 1995, composes Bollywood scores, and Fazal is the brother of Zakir Hussain, one of John McLaughlin's cohorts in fusion band Shakti.Fazal's tabla playing is complemented by Mikael Nilsson's percussion, and on recent CDs the groove has begun to incorporate African talking drums, bringing together three different rhythmic styles. Bassist Christian Paulin, who also produces much of the band's music, is equally adept with cool jazz and hard funk, and with guitarist Max Ahman and sax player Anders Hagberg both offering a versatile approach to their instruments, Mynta's musical journeys seem to have a limitless number of destinations. The music is textured by the use of Indian instruments such as the santoor and tanpoora, as well as the Norwegian willow flute and Swedish duclimer, while Arabic and latin rhythms also pepper the sound.The band has toured extensively in Scandinavia and has also played in China and India. Mynta's core membership is sometimes augmented by other musicians. On the 1997 EP "First Summer,” the band brought rap into the mix; as with all their other stylistic variations, this one fitted seamlessly into the music.