Falu’s Karyshma, Nation Beat Perform a mélange of sounds at DROM
Karyshma was a band formed by a group of friends while they were freshmen at Harvard and MIT. Sandeep Swadia is the (undeserving) student of the phenomenon called Ustad Zakir Hussain, Gaurav Shah learned from Pandit Ronu Majumdar and Ustad Sultan Khan, and Soumya Chatterjee is a rare blend of Indian and western classical music. These musicians, songwriters and storytellers have grown up to be CEOs and a neuroscientist, but they are as obsessed today as when they were as freshmen to wrap the ancient musical traditions with a fresh, modern context.
Over the last 15 years, Karyshma has had the great fortune to collaborate with Falu who brought pure magic to the improv-loving band. This fierce bond of musical collaboration has met critical and commercial success spanning over 200 concerts across the nation, giving birth to an album called “Nearly Home”.
Now, Falu and Karyshma are coming together as one.
Nation Beat’s live shows have taken on an almost mythological aura for their ability to lift the souls, and the feet, of their growing cross-cultural audience. The band’s music melds Brazilian rhythms – maracatu, coco and forro – with New Orleans funk, rock, jazz, bluegrass and country blues. Drummer/percussionist Scott Kettner and the band continue exploring the traditional sounds of New Orleans and Brazil on Carnival Caravan, a collaboration with Mardi Gras band Cha Wa and Brazilian singer/percussionist Silverio Pessoa. “Past albums have leaned heavily on Brazilian music,” Kettner says. “Working with Cha Wa on Carnival Caravan enabled me to explore musical inspirations from New Orleans in an even deeper way than on past albums.”