Music: The Indian invasion

Get ready, the Indians are coming!

That's not discredited dialogue from an old western, but a legitimate heads-up about a remarkable stretch of music moving through the Twin Cities this week. In a 72-hour period starting today, three acts, disparate in style yet all with close ties to India's rich classical tradition, will perform in three venues.

In fact, a boomlet of Indian-based music is pervading American pop culture in a manner not seen since the 1960s, when the leading acts in pop and jazz -- the Beatles and John Coltrane -- looked to India for spiritual and musical guidance.

1. Anoushka Shankar

First up is the sitar-playing daughter of the man who taught that instrument to the Beatles' George Harrison.

Just 26, Anoushka Shankar, who brings her octet to Orchestra Hall today, already has five recordings to her credit. But not until 2005's "Rise" and last year's "Breathing Under Water" did she begin to crystallize a style apart from that of her famous father, Ravi Shankar.

There are electronic snippets, breakbeats and rock textures along with ethereal passages featuring a bevy of strings and vocals that deftly mix sophisticated pop with Indian classical forms. "Breaking Under Water" is especially ambitious, with contributions from Sting and Norah Jones (her half-sister). Much of the record was co-composed by Shankar and acoustic guitarist Karsh Kale.

"I wasn't setting out to make a 'fusion' record, but just to have fun exploring all aspects of the music I enjoyed, with everything coming from my Indian base, the Indian ragas I grew up with," Shankar said by phone from her father's New York home.

When she describes what caught her ear growing up, the roots and strains of her mysterious mélange become more apparent.

"Well, not counting my love of Kylie Minogue back when I was 7, I really was taken with Björk and Massive Attack and Rage Against the Machine, and then in classical, Chopin and Philip Glass, and of course Sting," she said.

Shankar has a good-natured response to purists who feel she's besmirching the family name: "People who see the last two records as me breaking away from my father must forget that my father is such a boundary breaker himself. He has been my teacher, and so he sees that my going my own way is a sign of confidence, and he very much supports that.

"Don't get me wrong: On an intrinsic level, Indian music is limitless. With a vast and ancient style such as this, the further you go, the further you see you have to go. I understand that I am only at the beginning of that road. On the other hand, I don't want to marry myself to that entirely, to meditate on a mountaintop with it, even though that sounds beautiful to me sometimes. Indian music is at the root of what I do, but it is also [only] a part of what I do."

A similar sentiment might be expressed by Debashish Bhattacharya, although the Hindustani slide guitarist may embrace treks to the mountaintop a little more fervently.

Eighteen months ago, he played a concert at the Cedar Cultural Center sponsored by the Indian Music Society of Minnesota (IMSOM). After his enthusiastic reception, Bhattacharya didn't need an IMSOM sponsorship to draw attention to his return to the Cedar on Friday.

This week he released an extraordinary new disc, "Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide-Guitar Odyssey," that has him fingerpicking delicate back-porch drawls and frantically blurred polyrhythms. A child prodigy who has performed in public for 40 of his 44 years, Bhattacharya deploys three different guitars he designed himself to create ragas that explore styles ranging from gypsy to sufi to American country-folk.

"What he can do with the guitar is amazing. He is a true prodigy," says Dr. Ameeta Kelekar, a University of Minnesota cancer biologist by trade, but also president of IMSOM, a 28-year-old organization with more than 200 members.

3. Shashank Subramanyam

"We are getting the absolute crème de la crème of Indian artists here because Twin Cities audiences are so supportive of the music," said Kelekar. "I think, 'My God, 30 to 50 percent of them are American.' They get it. It is wonderful. I come from Chicago, and it is so much more open here. Maybe 10 percent of the audiences in Chicago are American. But here, people are really listening and that is so heartening."

Asked to explain the growing popularity of Indian music, Kelekar said, "I can't pinpoint one reason. But I think Indian artists are working outside the box. I think Westerners are attracted to the rhythm because it is cyclical and not going all over the place, and yet there is improvisation. You can hear the Indian music and the non-Indian influences, too."

Next Tuesday, for example, brings one of the year's most anticipated jazz releases: "Miles From India," a collaboration between various Miles Davis alumni and Indian classical and pop musicians.