Recorded late at night at the Saptak Festival in Ahmedabad, Gujurat in 2006, this effervescent performance captures four exquisite performers united by the north Indian classical form to create a timeless sound striking and inspirational.

The programme is built upon a beguiling alap, brimming with fragility, largely unbelievable for the poise, finesse and extrapolation of its nature.

As the dynamic range opens up, you immediately notice how sitar and flute combine and contrast beautifully to build a gorgeous movement full of vitality. The sitar in particular here fascinates in the way the melodies tail off into the air, dissolving upwards into the sky through the slightness of the resonant overtones to refresh and revive.

Naturally flowing into the metered jor section, the flute and sitar begin to produce startling displays of controlled vibrancy, so commanding in its presentation that you wonder how it could be any more brilliant.

Now it’s the flute which takes flight, with hypnotically fluid and languid melodic lines rising and falling so sincerely, artistic leaps between octaves and polyphonic clusters of notes, which all combine to punctuate a certain feeling of satisfaction so bold. This shrill exuberance is interspersed with a much more introverted howl full of sonorous warmth which contrasts perfectly as the melodic phrases extend upwards and outwards towards the end.

Shashids’ sitar explodes gracefully after each exclamatory phrase of the flute to envelop in a luxurious body of tones played so energetically that it sweeps along across the piece adding forward direction and a sense of purpose to a most remarkable piece of music and rounding off the first disc excellently.

The second disc opens with a long gat which sees the introduction of the mridangam drum and tabla. It rolls along smoothly, with extensive improvisation and alternates between mridangam and flute in the left channel, and tabla and sitar in the right. The music now is somewhat more immediate although a little less direct, with the addition of the two drummers.

This new dimension, thickness in sound, picks up and sharpens mid-way through to turn into a celebration of virtuosity fuelled by a deep understanding of expressive techniques and masterful sensibilities.

The fully charged synergy of the group then begins two short compositions in aditaal (8-beats) and teental (16-beats) which are simply thrilling in their imaginative scope from start to finish and finally peaks to make way for the closing mridangam and tabla duet. This duet again restores the original focus heard at the beginning of the disc and unfolds with the same quality of expression and performance as heard throughout the concert to conclude a truly awesome recording of a very special event.