Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt – A Meeting By The River

A Meeting by the River brings Ry Cooder’s slide guitar together with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s mohan veena, an Indian slide instrument with sympathetic strings. Their musical traditions are distinct, yet both players understand how a sustained note can bend, hover and answer a human voice. Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari on tabla and Joachim Cooder on dumbek provide the rhythmic frame.

The title piece begins without hurry, allowing the two slide instruments to identify themselves through touch and ornament before the conversation gathers. Bhatt’s long, decorated lines and Cooder’s blues-inflected replies meet without pretending their languages are identical. “Ganges Delta Blues” makes the connection more explicit through a shared rhythmic foundation, while “Longing” gives melody and resonance greater space. The closing “Isa Lei,” a Fijian farewell song, widens the geographical map again and turns the session towards quiet leave-taking. The album’s success lies in listening: neither musician treats the other as colour added to his own style.

This edition presents A Meeting by the River across two LPs at 33⅓ RPM. The double-disc physical format gives a generous setting to four extended performances and suits collectors of slide guitar, Indian classical instruments and cross-cultural improvisation grounded in musical respect. The spacious sequence invites attention to ornament, resonance and the changing balance between two highly individual slide voices in an unusually patient musical conversation. Michael 45 holds the records in Germany and dispatches them from Hilden, so customers can obtain the edition without arranging a personal US import or waiting for customs processing.

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