Kiran Ahluwalia: Comfort Food (digital outlets)

Anyone with even just a passing interest in world news would be aware of what is happening in India under current prime minister Modi: a relentless shift to the right encouraging Hindu nationalism which is seeing the steady marginalisation of the Muslim communities and neighbours.

In this country – so remote from the subcontinent and with news services which rarely look beyond a local murder, the weather and a feel-good item about the rescue of native birds – this lurch into militant Hindu fundamentalism rarely rates a mention.

At the time of writing India is having an election, not that New Zealand's news outlets have shown much interest. But if Modi is returned, and there is every reason to think he will, the next lightning rod confrontations between Hindu and Muslim will be in India where the factions are already lining up and spoiling for the fight.

Into this comes the voice of Juno-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Kiran Ahluwalia whose album Comfort Food addresses the rise of Hindu fundamentalism, repression and draws on poems by other writers to question the divisions between religions (Jaane Jahan) and police brutality during a Muslim women's protest about new laws which prevent Muslims from becoming Indian citizens even if they have lived in the country for decades and centuries (the moving Tum Dekhoge).

Ahluwalia -- who has previously recorded with Bill Laswell and Tinariwen -- here also duets with the great Algerian singer Souad Massi on Ban Koulchi Redux.

Musically some of this delivers like pop: Dil opens with an unusual vocalization of “wah-wah-wah” (which returns later as a hook) but the spins off into an upbeat pop dancefloor banger with a wiry guitar solo and later a trumpet part. And Pancake is as catchy as hell.

But on something like the extraordinary, hypnotic Tera Jugg/Your World or Jaane Jahan we are in more dramatic, menacing territory and closer to something like Sahara blues with keening vocals and a relentless, low, stalking beat.

With traditional instruments alongside western rock instrumentation (notably the guitar of producer Rez Abbasi), Ahluwalia has created an album which delivers the pan-political in a kind of world music which is contemporary yet timeless.

And her vocals can be mesmerising for their quiet control and containment (Har Khayal).

Kiran Ahluwalia has said “writing these songs gave me an emotional release from my own sense of helplessness – in this way creating this album has been my comfort food.”

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You can hear this album at Spotify here