WOMAD

Purna Das Baul and Bapi

From India

Purna Das Baul are Bengali minstrels, representing the eighth generation of a nomadic clan who have wandered the lands of north-east India on a quest for spiritual ecstasy through music. They fire themselves into joyous frenzy around the engaging good humour of the irrepressible Bapi - his constantly flashing grin and euphoric pirouettes flow from the joyful source of their music. This is the music of the Indian marketplace; it evolved from battling against haggling traders, wandering cows and milling crowds and it demands your attention with a series of musical suprises and impassioned vocals. The songs which tell of the struggle for union with the divine are rich with metaphors and base their message in the language of everday village life. The music is a bustle of assorted percussion over whose peaks skips a dancing flute, trailed by the lilting banjo sounds of the mandira. They have been captured in ebullient form on the WOMAD Select CD, 'Songs of Love and Ecstasy'.