Balladeste's Indo-Baroque Vision
In the lastest episode of the Right Brain Music Podcast, we welcome back two friends of ours. They are Preetha Naryanan and Tara Franks, two thirds of the London-based trio Quest Ensemble, which as featured in Episode 15, a couple of years ago. Here, we explore a separate duo project of theirs, called Balladeste. We hear their spellbinding music, learn where it comes from and find out about their new album, Beyond Breath.
First, a little background: Tara is a native of England, while Preetha is an American expat. They are both classically trained musicians, Tara on cello and Preetha on violin. They each have vast individual credits, but together they’ve charted their own path in a field in which instrumentalists typically stay in their lane. Instead, the duo has branched out into composition, improvisation and recording of original music that crosses genres and defies simple labels. Quest Ensemble is a great example of what can happen when we re-think the “rules”. We talked a lot about the excitement of breaking out of traditional roles in episode 15. Balladeste is another fascinating branch on their musical tree.
They summarize the project this way:
“With traces of contemporary minimalism, Indian classical and folk, the duo co-creates compositions that are vibrant and experimental yet melodic and filmic in quality – songs without words, and a contemporary alt-folk twist.” They’ve also described it as “Indo-baroque.”
But Balladeste is really more than that – it’s a demonstration of the power of musical chemistry. These two string players meld together seamlessly, as if a single instrument, through their captivating and deceptively complex pieces. Listen to the podcast here.
Links and a playlist for this episode follows.
Balladeste’s two album covers.
For more background, see the Balladeste website. Click an image above to hear or purchase albums.
Songs featured/excerpted in the podcast:
“Prelude”
“Liminal”
“Specht”
“Avo Miniatures”
“Sai Rom” *
“Dina Dukhio” *
“Rocking”
“Being” *
“Drift” *
“Through the Fields”
* From Beyond Breath. (Others from Relic.)