Jaggery

Jaggery is a brooklyn-based musical collective whose songs are not like anything else you've heard. The In Lethe EP (2004) is a collection of five genre-defying compositions that alluded to the bands potential as a force in the new york city underground and alternative music scenes. Boston-via-London transplant and songstress Mali Sastri fronts--it is her dexterous vocals, instinctive piano playing, and innovative, absorbing songwriting that lie at the heart of the Jaggery sound. As likely to bring to mind Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins as Diamanda Galas, Mali's ability to bridge the delicate with the fierce is both a signature of her voice and of Jaggery's repertoire--from haunting lullabies to furious, mixed-meter rants; tightly-woven, classicaly-tinged compositions in odd-time signatures to catharsis-inducing, barn-burning mini-epics (often-times within the same song). She is flanked by a rotating lineup of musicians and instrumentation that create an exotic musical mobile and a kind of avant-garde acoustic electronica around what are often highly personal song tales. The ensemble includes Daniel Schubmehl's unique Cajón-based percussive style combining African groove and breakbeat, Tony Leva's outrageously funky, earthy upright bass, Jesse Sparhawk's glistening celtic harp, and Raky Sastri's melodic, whisper-to-thunder jazz drumming. The sound is rich, organic, engrossing, emotional--both delicate and fierce, enchanting and disturbing, dark and triumphant.

Taken from their MySpace (though with a bit cut out/edited)