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Four cuts into Talvin Singh's first full-fledged solo album, OK (Island), and we're on top of Mount Kailash in the middle of a tantric sex lesson, being promised "the true story of ecstasy" in a bad Indian accent. But just when you think you're gonna get the goods on the position that keeps you holy for 10,000 years -- and just when you think that Singh has completely lost his cultural footing -- global pop's savviest tabla blaster pulls a funny on Indian cinephiles and henna-happy subcontinent exoticizers alike (yes, Gwen and Madonna, that means you). "We call this position . . . NAAASTY!"

The pre-fab aural incense fades and Singh unleashes his own version of Eastern spiritual Eros in under a minute: a messy maelstrom of angular metallic beats that bounce off one another like angry, digitized ping-pong balls. It might as well be the sound of bindis flying off Urban Outfitter foreheads.

Being this critically live and direct is new for Singh. In the bhangra-to-jungle history of England's ever-mutating "Asian Underground" club scene, he's been a sort of ideological middle man. Not a polished Bollywood popster or bhangra crossover missionary like Bally Sagoo. And not offering the kind of post-colonial polemicism nurtured by labels like Outcaste and Nation and performed with the most anti-imperialist fire and brimstone by Asian Dub Foundation (whose second album of riddim-and-dub time bombs -- Rafi's Revenge, on London -- hit racks next to OK this week). Singh works the angles on globalizing Asia: he can do tabla drops and string arrangements with everybody from Bj�rk to Sun Ra one minute and then the next open Anokha, an East London Asian-themed club complete with an ISDN link to Bombay and a Calcutta Cyber Caf� chill-out room.

The club's compilation spawn, Anokha: Soundz of the Asian Underground (for which Singh was the top-billed curator), quickly became the template for how the world would think about the Anglo-Asian sound clash: State of Bengal purloining an India Airlines flight announcement for a trip across razor-sharp tabla loops and diamond-backed jungle beats; the Milky Bar Kid plugging in the 1200s for an electro-funk session; Amar taking trip-hop back to its raga roots.

In OK's press material, Singh says he chose the title because it's "the most common word in the world," and because (and this is still Singh-speak), like music, it knows no boundaries. The opening seconds of OK's first track, "Traveler," begins with the perfect Singh mantra: "The world is sound."

But OK is more of an England-to-India, sarangi-and-sequencer diaspora travelogue than a global love-in (that is, if the world is sound, then the world sounds a lot like second-generation British Asians living in London). And a good thing, too. OK is like little else Singh or his fellow new jacks have come up with before.

Shri & Badmarsh
Dancing Drums
(Outcaste)

Since opening its doors in 1994 as London's first all-Asian label devoted to new breakbeat technologies, Outcaste has been responsible for some of the Asian Underground's most forward-thinking creations. Untouchable is a succinct introduction to Outcaste artistry, touching down on everything from Nitin Sawhney's lulling jazz drones to Niraj Chag's chunky jungle ragas. Sprinkled in between is a greatest hits of Asian-tinged club tracks that digs up a 1969 sitar street strut from the Dave Pike Set and finds Ananda Shankar holding it down on a gem of decadent mid-'70s Calcutta lounge rock. Both tracks get reworked on the bi-national beat meditations of Dancing Drums, a collaboration between two of Outcaste's biggest guns, Bombay electric-bassist Shri and East London junglist Badmarsh. A dance-floor tabla addict's dream.

Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars, & Sitars
(Motel)

Apparently the only way for domestic beat miners to get a handle on Bollywood film music is to run it through the hipster mill as some kitschy Indian version of blaxploitation flicks. On this vexing, groove-soaked filmi-funky new comp of unreleased '70s Bollywood action scores by composers listed only as "Kalyani, Anandji," the already rich original tracks are given silly new names ("Fists of Curry," "Swami Safari"), "translated" by the Automator with new textures and mixes, and provided with new beats from the DJ Shadow stockpile. The New York CD-release party promises contortionists and hookah pipes. You be the judge.

Listen to it in CDnow.com

Bombay 405 Miles Away
Good, The Bad And THe Chutney
My Guru
Ganges A Go-Go
The Great Gambler
Professor Pyarelal
Punjabis, Pimps & Players
Inspector Jay From Dehli
Satchidananda
Theme From Don
Fear Of A Brown Planet

I just love this Compilation. Its a hell of a piece. - Jim.T