Dha Re Dha is Sumkali's 4th album and their most ambitious project to date. 15 musicians contributed to this album including the world-renowned tabla master Pandit Samar Saha as well as GRAMMY Award winning harmonica player Peter Madcat Ruth.

This album represents a culmination of 3 years of work in the studio and is truly a collaborative effort amongst all the members. The songs on this album fall into 3 main categories: 1). arrangements of traditional Indian folk melodies, 2) Improvised studio sessions with minimal editing, and 3) Fully composed 'hyper-realistic' original studio creations that were built from the ground up in the studio track by track.

The term 'hyper-realistic' refers to the process used to create the arrangements, melodies and sounds, in which we used every digital tool available to us to cut, splice, arrange, tune, align, re-record, layer and add effects to the sounds until they felt just right. The end result sounds like we are all in a room playing together, however the process to get that sound could not have been further from that reality.

To learn more about the process, be sure to check out the Dha Re Dha companion iBook available on our website and in the Merch section of this site.

About the title: Dha Re Dha has two meanings, one is rhythmic and one melodic. The rhythmic side comes from the sounds of the tabla. Every sound the tabla makes has a specific word that corresponds to it, these are called 'bols'. 'Dha' is one of the most prominent sounds that the drum makes, utilizing both the right and left hand playing the highest and lowest note together. 'Re' is one of the smallest and softest sounds made by a light touch of the right hand.
On the melodic side, 'Dha' and 'Re' are part of what is called the 'sargam', which is the collection of notes that make up the raaga. Compared to the western solfege scale (Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do), the equivalent in Indian sargam is Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. So 'Dha' and 'Re' are the 6th and 2nd scale degrees respectively.
In the title track, the raaga used to compose the melodies is known as Raag Bhairav, which utilizes all 7 notes of the sargam with just two notes flatted....'Dha' and 'Re'. This is what creates the unique and intense sound.

This album is the result of one amazing day at Sage Ct. Studio in Ann Arbor, MI. Pandit Samar Saha was on a North American tour and made a stop in Michigan. John Churchville, a student of Pdt. Saha, had been doing some recording with the legendary Nada drummer Muruga Booker and was able to bring these two masters together for one magical day.
The music on this album is the result of the purest form of improvisation. There was no pre-conceived notions of what was to happen. The musicians just came in, tuned up, and went for it.
A year passed and the tracks were enhanced with drones, Ektar, Saaz, Electric Mandolin and Bass, but at the fore front of the entire album is the Tabla and Nada drumming by true masters of their craft.

Recorded live at Sage Ct. Studio in Ann Arbor, MI. on the 27th of December, 2012; Muruga's 70th birthday!

The musicians sat together in the same room. All the tracks were completely improvised and no edits have been made.

Tihai is a term in Indian music which describes the playing of a rhythmic phrase three times in order to mark a significant change in the music. This makes it a perfect fit for the title of our third album.

The production of this album was made possible with the support of our friends and family that contributed to our successful Kickstarter campaign.

Executive Producer:
Stephanie Saba of SunMoon

Producers:
Ella Atkins & Deano Smith, Rupali Bedi, John Diephouse, Nishant, Baljeet & Vinod Domala, Anurag Ghosh, Dipan Ghosh, Sulata Ghosh, Sujatha Gopal, Michael Kruskie, Bev Manko, Ananya and Anoushka Ghosh Prasanna, Kartik Prasanna, Aswin Punathambekar and Sue and Tony Tollefson.

Supporters:
Todd Aldous & Jackie Yaroch, Debasish & Tanima Banerjee, Heather Betts, Susan and Jeff Champine, Jody Churchville, Will Cicola, Karen Danzeisen, A T Freeborn, Tim Giles, Iman Randhawa, Lawrence Lazare, Michael Malis, Rolfe Maxon, Shashank Mehendale, Tejash V. Patel, Pooja Prasad, Saradhi Rengarajan, Jessica Ross, Jon Rush, Sherry Savage and Ben Seiber.
Thank You!

Chalo is a Hindi word meaning "Let's go!". For this second album we took a much different approach to the recording process. We started by doing a lot of improvising with 1, 2 and 3 instruments at a time and then building the pieces like a puzzle, using the best parts of the improv. We also made sure to include some more traditional recordings to round things off. In all the process lasted an entire year and we are very happy with the result. Hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it!

Indian Classical, Folk, and fusion with Jazz and Funk influence. A true fusion of East and West.