Beyond Skin

Beyond Skin
Studio album by Nitin Sawhney
Released	13 September 1999
Genre	Downtempo, Drum & Bass
Length	58:22
Label	Outcaste
Nitin Sawhney chronology
Displacing the Priest (1996) Beyond Skin (1999) Spirit Dance (1999)

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Beyond Skin is an album by Nitin Sawhney. It was released on the Outcaste label in 1999. The album focuses largely on the theme of nuclear weapons; Sawhney states in the booklet that the album "has a timespan that runs backwards", beginning at Broken Skin with the India-Pakistan nuclear situation and ending at Beyond Skin with Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita – "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds".

Sawhney also aims to question what constitutes one's identity – he writes in the liner notes for the album: "I believe in Hindu philosophy. I am not religious. I am a pacifist. I am a British Asian. My identity and my history are defined only by myself – beyond politics, beyond nationality, beyond azid, and Beyond Skin."

Legacy

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[1]

Track listing

1. "Broken Skin" (Sanchita Farruque, Nitin Sawhney) – 4:05
2. "Letting Go" (C. S. Gray, Sawhney) – 4:49
3. "Homelands" (Nina Miranda, Sawhney) – 6:00
4. "The Pilgrim" (Sawhney, Spek) – 4:29
5. "Tides" (Sawhney) – 5:06
6. "Nadia" (Sawhney) – 5:05 (The vocalist for this song is Swati Natekar who is singing in the Brij dialect of Hindi. The words roughly translate to: "The River ebbs and flows, My lover calls, I do not hear")
7. "Immigrant" (Sawhney) – 6:21
8. "Serpents" (Sawhney) – 6:17
9. "Anthem Without Nation" (Sawhney) – 5:48
10. "Nostalgia" (Sawhney) – 3:41
11. "The Conference" (Sawhney) – 2:53
12. "Beyond Skin" (Sawhney) – 3:48

References

1. Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.