Hello Hello

by Rick AndersonGaurav Raina and Tapan Raj make electronica of unusual wit and flexibility, and they do so in ways that draw deeply on their Indian heritage without invoking the kind of fake spirituality that flatters Western listeners who believe that enjoying South Asian inflections is a sign of their own depth. Anyone who approaches Hello Hello with that attitude will be nicely brought up short by the cheesy vocoder on "Electric Universe" and by the way the duo cheerfully hijacks the rock & roll colonialism of Led Zeppelin's "Four Sticks" (effortlessly demonstrating both the song's silliness and its grandeur). That's not to say that everything here is humorous, though all of it is fun: the sharply funky "Drifting" nicely juxtaposes snapping drum parts with lush strings and a keening bansuri flute; "Sun Mere Salam" features a stark rhythm in support of intense ghazal singing by Vishal Vaid;"The Lucky One" is a trashy slab of funktronica that dares you not to dance, and that involves no discernible Asian elements at all. The album closes, improbably, with an acoustic version of "Electric Universe", a perfect chill-out coda.