On the back of winning a Songlines Music Award, Dr Blighty and the Brighton Festival brings in one of the world’s great musicians to play the Brighton Dome – Debashish Bhattacharya. Born into a family of musicians in Kolkata, it was very clear from a young age that Debashish was extremely talented, making his debut playing a full-sized Hawaiian lap steel guitar at the age of four on All India Radio. At 15-years-old he created his first Chaturangui, a slide guitar which has 24 strings and combines resonances from many different Indian instruments, as well as a defining new musical genre called Hindustani Slide Guitar.

Once sat on the Dome’s huge stage, Debashish breaks the ice by saying he had worn a bright shirt especially for his time in Brighton. Chuckles rolled out of the audience as he described what was to come from the show that started late at 10:45pm, “Very good late evening. A late concert is rare in this part of the world, so I have created a midnight raga especially for you”.

Accompanied by the atmospheric sounds of a Shruti Box being played through his phone, Debashish started tuning his Chaturangui and it was so extremely impressive and arresting that the audience had to applaud. The first part of the performance was used as an introduction to the instrument he created – although it did take a bit of time for him to fully find his groove, almost having to force the music out of himself. Debashish used claw picks on his right hand to intricately pick and strum this Chaturangui, with a choice of two sliders (one metal and one that looked like a crystal egg) in his other. Once under the Indian Raga’s accent trance, the music was coming out of Debashish incredibly naturally and it was unbelievably fixating – the audience were virtually frozen in the moment, not to be released from his spell until the music had stopped. Even though the sound he was creating made for quite an intense experience, I counted seven people around me who had been sucked too deep into the spell and had fallen asleep to the relaxing nature of the music.

The next part saw Tabla virtuoso Gurdain Rayatt (trained by the world renowned maestro Pandit Shakar Ghosh) join Debashish for the rest of the concert’s duration. At first, the pair reacquainted themselves and were almost sparring, getting to know each other’s mood and rhythm as they had only performed with each other a couple of times prior. Once completely in-tune, they raised each other’s game, testing one another to see what level they could reach. It was as if they both left their bodies and they let the music take control, allowing their limbs to go at incredible speeds. It really was unbelievable in parts, especially in the glorious acoustics of the Dome – they would pick up the music’s pace, accentuate notes and stop on a pin drop, all in complete unison. It was no surprise that the audience couldn’t help but erupt in applause to these magnificent moments.

The concert ended with Debashish switching to a smaller guitar, a Hawaiian slide ukulele, for “the early morning raga, the coffee time raga” with no sounds of the Shruti. Debashish obviously had a very soft spot for this four-string instrument, practically melting to the glorious and unbelievable sounds he was producing. Unsurprisingly, a standing ovation followed. What was a surprise was an unexpected encore even at a little past midnight, which elated the room. Debashish brought sandy beaches, coconut shells and hula skirts to the venue with a Hawaiian inspired song: “There is no need to buy a plane ticket when you can go from Rajasthan to Hawaii in two seconds with the slide guitar”. Whereas the music previously was in a minor key, this was in major and made for a happy and uplifting way to end the show at such a time.
Iain Lauder