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Reviews

Rahul Mukerji — Mridhangit
(Bandcamp no#, 2026, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-06-16

Mridhangit Cover art

Around nine years ago we published a review of Ma de Re Sha, Rahul Mukerji’s debut album. The Indian-born American guitarist and composer’s first release offered a lot of promise at the time. In the years since he has been busy with live dates in the USA and India, composing music for soundtracks, instruction, and much more. Mridhangit is his second album — sure, nine years seems like a long time to wait, but one listen to this new set of eleven mostly instrumental tunes will assure the listener that it was certainly worth it. The sounds herein could best be described as a fusion of Indian themes, rock, jazz, classical, and more, all subject to Mukerji’s musical filter to pull the best ideas from all and combine them into something new. Some pieces here rock pretty hard, but still bear a uniqueness that could only come from a skilled composer and player with his background. For his part, in addition to composition and arrangements, Mukerji is credited with guitars, keyboards, hangdrum, and programming, this time leaving much of the percussion work to others. An extended group of twelve players works with him, including some who were on the debut, including drummer Leo Margarit and bassist Ruben Rubio. Additional players provide keyboards, clarinet, piano, tablas, bansuri, violin, mridangam, kanjira, duduk, upright acoustic bass, and additional percussion. Piano features prominently on “Enjoymaddi” building slowly into a full group effort, the solo guitar in the last half of the piece is positively breathtaking. The title track is unique among the others in that it features vocals in the konnakol style (Carnatic spoken rhythms) by Praveen Sparsh, which together with the bansuri flute, tabla, and hangdrum presents a sonic field that is at once powerful and beautiful. “Bheja Fry” presents an overt rock and world fusion, pushing the limits of both idioms, while “Dushtan” features a wild repeating melody on violin with some amazing guitar shredding. “Four Seas” is a powerful piece for piano that is  joined by percussion and bass in t he final minute, while the closer “Mutabor” featuring only guitar, tabla, duduk, and synthesizer-as-flute hints at sadness. Mridhangit more than delivers on all the promises of Mukerji’s debut.

Filed under: New releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): Rahul Mukerji

More info
http://rahulmukerji.bandcamp.com/album/mridhangit

 

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