Check out the wild ‘Pot Belly Blues‘ off Bangalorean guitarist Prasanna’s album Electric Ganesha Land. It sounds like John Mellencamp set to tabla. The album is Carnatic, rock and blues guitar fusion. It’s not like much I’ve heard before.

As the first shredded notes of “Eruption in Bangalore” explode from the guitar, the Hendrix psychedelia couldn’t be more apparent. But the slide work is strongly reminiscent of gamakas on the veena… Welcome to Prasanna’s Electric Ganesha Land, a hard-rocking tribute to Jimi Hendrix…

Then there’s the quirky “Pot Belly Blues”, a spoof on music styles like bluegrass, says Prasanna. One of the lighter, frothier songs on the album… [it contrasts] heavier songs on the album like “Dark Sundae in Triplicane”…

“The guitar is the most versatile instrument in the world. There are so many styles that would never have existed without the guitar. There wouldn’t be any rock, tex mex, flamenco, blues… without the guitar. Almost every modern music style, except jazz owes a lot to the guitar…” [Link]

Prasanna’s ingenious use of multiple, simultaneous guitar tracks in “Dark Sundae In Triplicane”, paints vivid images. One might picture a relentlessly advancing hoard of Chinese junks on the mind’s horizon. Originally written for a string orchestra, Prasanna plays both the lead guitar and the electric fretted bass… Prasanna rounds it off on the vocals with some saucy kunnakol (vocal exposition of rhythm patterns that perform the role of percussion) - the hip-hop of the ancient Indians… [Link]

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