Raga Surdasi Malhar: Gat~Fast Teental

\"Raga Surdasi Malhar: Gat~Fast Teental\" is a 21-minute instrumental composition performed by sitarist Nikhil Banerjee. The track appears as the third piece on the album Total Absorption, released on January 1, 2000 by Navras Records in CD format.

The recording captures Banerjee’s interpretation of Raga Surdasi Malhar, a monsoon-associated raga in the Hindustani classical tradition. The performance follows the gat structure, a fixed melodic composition in fast Teental, a 16-beat rhythmic cycle. The track exemplifies Banerjee’s technical precision and expressive phrasing, characteristic of his later recording phase.

Total Absorption compiles live and studio recordings from Banerjee’s career, though the specific session details for this track remain undocumented in available sources. The album serves as a posthumous release, issued seven years after Banerjee’s death in 1993. Navras Records, a label specializing in Indian classical music, distributed the CD without additional liner notes on individual track provenance.

The composition adheres to the conventional alaap-jor-jhala-gat framework, though the album’s production emphasizes the gat section in this recording. The accompaniment artists, if any, are not credited in the release metadata. The track duration of 21 minutes and 21 seconds reflects the extended improvisational development typical of Banerjee’s concert-style performances.