It is always a challenge to select an album for the “Best album of the year” award. But for 2014 it was a little bit easier than usual, because Nitish Kulkarni’s debut album Synesthetic is such a remarkable release. We scored it 98/100. Many have compared his music with Yanni, but the album shows that Kulkarni has much more to offer.
In our review we wrote:
It had to happen at some point. Sooner or later an artist would appear that had the potential to become a New Age music superstar, much like Mike Oldfield in 1973 or Enya in 1988. 20 year old Nitish Kulkarni‘s debut album Synesthetic shows exceptional talent. Yet it is not a perfect album, and it is not a new Tubular Bells or Watermark. But it is without a doubt the most promising debut album in the New Age music genre since year 2000. The artists of 1970s and 80s can safely retire, knowing that the future of music is in the best of hands…
New Age music has never been a young man’s genre. This is not pop or rock where an artist of 28 is considered old and most likely will not produce anything interesting. The genre has since its beginning been dominated by artists in their 40s and 50s. This is one of the reasons – though not the primary reason – why Nitish Kulkarni is an interesting artist.
In conclusion; Synesthetic is in every way a magnificent debut album. Nitish Kulkarni has the potential to become New Age music superstar. When that happens, Synesthetic will be the album that showed his amazing talent – but not his uniqueness.
But that’s ok. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Synesthetic is now out on CD and as a digital download. It will be available on iTunes and Spotify in January 2015.