Call of the blues

"A meeting of musical minds where you can't hear the joints ... UK blues slide guitar maestro Messer joins forces with Hindustani slide guy Manish Pingle (...) and young London-based tabla player Gurdain Rayatt for a set which features blues standards along with a JJ Cale cover, a couple of Messer originals and a traditional Indian raga thrown in for good measure. All given a distinct Hindustani twist. Messer is rare amongst Brit bluesniks in that he possesses a real feel for the music and yet gives it his own personal stamp, here singing and sliding through songs by Muddy Waters, Mississippi Fred McDowell and the like, while Pingle and Rayatt work round and with him, adding colour and rhythm ... An acoustic blues album that takes the music right back to the deltas: Mississippi and Ganges".

"In its happiest moments the album is musically interesting ... there is a magical essence, a transcendental interplay of diverse cultures into an artistic tapestry. Most outstanding here is Manish Pingle's sheer prowess as a slide instrumentalist. A master of complex Indian classical music, he is breathtakingly eloquent. Likewise, the young tabla player Gurdain Singh Rayatt is a wizard ... The emulate Mississippi Hill Country and Delta blues, and in a few sweet spots they hit it right and it all works ... On the downside, when they miss it (...) it becomes meandering confusion, an overwrought mess".