Taken from the Echoes Blog
Todd Boston is one half of the duo, Urban Nature.  We’ll be hearing an interview with them on Tuesday and in December there will be a Living Room Concert.  But right now, in this Echo Location, find out what happens when you grow up listening to Echoes.  You can hear an audio version of this blog, with Urban Nature’s music, here.

ECHO LOCATION: URBAN NATURE

More than 40 years after it’s release, George Harrison’s raga derived hymn, “Within You With Out You”  is still influencing musicians like guitarist Todd Boston.
Todd Boston:  I think it was the Beatles who brought me to Indian music.  I did a college paper on the song Within You Without You And I think that was one of the first pieces of music that really grabbed me that had some traces of Indian music and then I kept just going deeper and deeper into it.
Todd Boston wasn’t even born when The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers came out.  The guitarist grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, as did percussionist Ramesh Kannan.  His parents were born in Mumbai And Madras and he has even deeper roots in Indian music.
Ramesh Kannan:  My mom is an amazing Carnatic vocalist and she’s been doing that her whole life and she’s the one that influenced me to learn tabla when I was 8-years old and my musical path kind of got dictated in that way from her.
The two musicians met in San Francisco, where they formed their east-west duo called Urban Nature.  Todd Boston has studied Indian music extensively, including a couple of years at the feet of the late Indian sarod master, Ali Akbar Khan.
Todd Boston:  What appealed to me was something that I had a harder time finding in Western music and in popular music in the United States which was, you know, what somebody might call a spirituality to it or a depth.  You know, I’ll just define it as a depth to the music.  There’s a saying from India that says “Nada Brahma” which means “Sound is God.”
Urban Nature is influenced by jazz guitarist John McLaughlin’s iconic band Shakti, as well as Windham Hill guitarists like the late Michael Hedges.  They play acoustic based music, but whip out electric guitars and digital loops, and they think of their album, Coming Home,  as somewhere between a meditation CD and a Pink Floyd concept album.
Ramesh Kannan: You know, we talked back and forth about like where does it fit, where does fit and is it meditation music?  Is it world fusion music?  What is it?  And that way of thinking wasn’t getting us anywhere.  We’re like, “let’s just make a record, a creative album that can explore everything that we are right now with this.
Urban Nature’s latest CD is called Coming Home.  I’ll have a more extensive interview with the duo next Tuesday 10/27/09.  This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.
John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Interview recorded during a Living Room Session on Echoes, the two hour nightly music soundscape heard on over 130 public radio stations and distributed by Public Radio International.

By Shari Faye Dell,
West Marin Citizen
published October 8, 2009

Lagunitas resident Todd Boston and Ramesh Kannan first joined musical forces to create the sound of Urban Nature in 2005. “Playing with Ramesh the first time,” Boston describes a musical alchemy, “I felt really drawn to want to create more music together. There was instant chemistry, a musical connection which does not happen every day.”

“I was living in Arizona and Ramesh was living in Santa Cruz,” Boston explains. “I was traveling and doing some touring in California at the time.” Within several months of meeting they laid their first tracks together which later proved to be the momentum necessary to form Urban Nature.

The combined instrumentation weaves vocal harmony, guitar, flute, tabla, and percussion. The ambient music genre–largely evolved during the latter half of the twentieth century–seeks to create atmosphere. Unlike the tradition of folk music and the art of story telling, the spirit of ambient music is to create atmosphere utterly shaped in the moment, through rhythm, melody, timbre and texture.

The philosophy of the ambient musician is to compose with mood in mind, invoking meditation, movement, or action. Through the savvy application of looping technology (a recorded sample of the previous measure(s) played back at the touch of a foot pedal) the quaint duo, Boston and Kannan, build phrase upon phrase to accomplish a broad spectrum of sound: nearly congregational; somewhat orchestral.

Four years of working together suffice, “Our level of looping has evolved. What started as pretty basic stuff, just putting down some layers,” Boston relates, “ has become full compositions … creating this ensemble sound between the two of us.” Now add the to the mix, “Mr. Cello Man” Matt Schoening (mrcelloman.com), “A fantastic looping cellist,” says Boston.

The members of Urban Nature, Todd Boston and Ramesh Kannan, will be joined by Matt Schoening Friday, October 9 at 8 p.m. at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center for an evening of Impressionistic ambient and instrumental music. Advance tickets available through sgvcc.com. For CD’s, information and streaming Urban Nature visit: urbannaturemusic.com. A live Urban Nature concert recorded in a Los Angeles studio earlier this year will broadcast later this month on Public Radio International’s program “Echoes” hosted by John Diliberto. To find a broadcast station or listen online visit: echoes.org
Home for the two musicians who make up this world fusion duo is Marin County, and it's clear that Marin's natural beauty filled them with inspiration on their first full-length album.

The acoustic duo of guitarist Todd Boston, who lives in Lagunitas and studied under the late, great Ali Akbar Khan, and tabla player/percussionist Ramesh Kannan of Corte Madera, give us a visual cue of home by appearing on the cover photograph playing their instruments beneath a solitary eucalyptus tree on a bluff overlooking Stinson Beach.

They create a fuller sound using state-of-the-art looping technology, allowing them to give the illusion of a 10-piece orchestra on this mostly instrumental album's 15 compositions. They further give their East-meets-West sound depth and texture with the addition of exotic instruments such as bamboo and Native American flutes, zither and slot drum.

On the title track and another called “The Sea,” Shay Nichols adds vocals and Vlad Cardema plays didgeridoo on the tracks “Open” and “Indra.” Danny Barber adds jaw harp on “Open” and Nina Laxshmi's ethereal vocals give uncommon grace and elegance to the tunes “Healing” and “Aya.”

The music is gorgeous, transporting and fascinating in its variety of exotic instruments and evocative ambient sounds. This enterprise seems genuinely heartfelt, and the musicianship is impeccable.

They advertise their CD as being ideal for massage, relaxation, yoga, dance and party gooving, and if that doesn't sound like a soundtrack for Marin County living then nothing does.

CD Review in Hear Magazine, distributed by Marin Independent Journal, Marin County, CA
Review written by Paul Liberatore