That asinine term “world music” actually acquires some meaning when applied to the art of Kim Sanders. The Sydney multi-instrumentalist has stewed in musical melting pots from Indonesia to Gambia and is especially steeped in the sounds of Turkey and Eastern Europe. Having absorbed these traditions, he plays within or without them as suits his creative impulses.
Sanders’s long-term collaboration with tabla player Bobby Singh stretches the sonic world of Asia Minor eastward, towards the subcontinent, just as Steve Elphick’s bass and Sandy Evans’s saxophone bring jazzier sensibilities to bear. But Sanders never forces square pegs into round holes and his musical imagination unfolds with a marvellous fluidity, like a river being fed by many tributaries, with the main flow mingling beautiful, often melancholy melodies with evocative rhythms and exotic textures.
His own braying tenor saxophone, assorted wistful flutes and sometimes imperious bagpipes radiate a joy in having such open dialogues with his gifted collaborators; dialogues that have been superbly recorded.
– John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, July 11, 2008