This is the second meeting between warm baritone vocalist Sachal Vasandhani and impressionist pianist Romain Collin, and it is even more intimate and pastoral than the first. Vasandhani is in conversant voice, caressing each syllable as if they were rationed drops of water to a parched throat on this mix of originals and covers. His own “No More Tears” has an almost folkish feel in the mode of the 70s group Pentangle, while there is a chamber atmosphere on personal reflections of “I Love You” and “Someone Someone”.
Collin is superb in creating rich backdrops, evoking a late night saloon on “Freight Train” and giving Satie-like ivories to “How Could We Be” while evoking a bit of subversive turbulence on “Washing of the Water”. A take of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” has a parlor-like quality whereas “Let It Grow” is reminiscent of Johnny Hartman’s read of “Lush Life”. With an album like this, with nowhere to hide, one truly has to trust both voice and partner, and Vasandhani succeeds well on the two fronts.