Release date: 15.05.2026 – self-release
The Toronto-based duo of Anita Katakkar (tabla) and Kayla Milmine (soprano saxophone) is releasing their new recording, Amrita, this Friday on CD and digital formats, available directly through the group’s Bandcamp fanpage.
The Toronto duo Amrita cultivates an intimate and captivating soundworld in a space where multiple traditions and exploratory ethos converge. Formed in 2022, the chosen moniker of Anita Katakkar (tabla) and Kayla Milmine (soprano saxophone) is Sanskrit for “nectar of immortality” a notion that reflects the manner in which musical lineages flow through their collective sound.
“Te Lucknow tradition allows tabla compositions to be alive through whoever plays them with commitment,” notes Katakkar, explaining the relative permeability of her particular gharana within Hindustani classical music. “We also feel that the approaches of musicians like Yusef Lateef, Ali Akbar Khan and John Handy move through our music. Their music is also immortal as it continues to inspire.”
The pair frst met in 2021 when Katakkar was invited to perform at the Women From Space Festival, the popular Toronto event that Milmine co-founded. Te two subsequently played together behind Music and the Shadow People, the radio play written by lauded bassist and composer William Parker and produced by sound artist and pirate radio producer Andrew O’Connor. Katakkar and Milmine were featured together in presentations of the piece at New York’s Roulette and the Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival in Montréal.
photo by Daniel Zahalka
Amrita‘s singular sound audibly braids together the distinct musical heritages of Katakkar and Milmine—Hindustani music and jazz/improvised music respectively—however listeners need not dig too much deeper to discover how these blended frameworks serve as a vehicle for both artists’ voracious curiosity. Teir self-titled debut album, produced by recent Grammy award-winner Justin Gray, illuminates the duo’s nimble, intricate rhythms, bold melodic sense, and the agility with which they pursue spontaneous invention. It also serves as a showcase for their unusual instrumentation, the sparseness of which is a key factor in them being able to inhabit their particular stylistic in-between so successfully. This combination might initially read as limited, but in their capable and sensitive hands, this transforms into sharp focus in the ears of listeners, unlocking a world of expressive intrigue. It certainly helps that each possesses an expansive timbral and gestural vocabulary which in turn sufuses their interactions with a reciprocal dynamism. This can be heard straight away on opener “Take Flight” where their introductory conversation is peppered
with percussive attacks from Milmine that allude to Katakkar’s drums. Just past the half-way point, both players unfurl thrilling displays of virtuosity yet all without protruding from the composition’s overarching structure. A later piece, “Heavy Bird” deftly sculpts space and colour, applying their sensibility to a piece of contemplative abstraction “English Breakfast” and “Bon Chaton” are both pieces where Milmine’s compositional temperament comes to the fore. The culmination midway through “Bon Chaton” sees the pair modulating tempo as Milmine articulates a bold, angular phrase with sharp leaps in register. Tis angularity is later reprised in an extended passage of solo saxophone full of multiphonics and microtonal infections. In the second half of the former she unleashes a wild torrent of melody and texture that refects her improvisational grounding, all the way staying true to the cross-cultural vision the two have conceived together.
Te pair are joined by two guests both of whom ofer delightful shifts in tone without undoing the spell cast by the duo. Zaynab Wilson‘s cajón brings a brittle, snappy energy to the percussive side of things while also creating a subtle sense of harmony. This latter feature underlines just how much Katakkar’s playing engages with pitch in the context of this duo. On the fnale, “Metamorphosis,” Wilson ofers some welcome anchoring as Katakkar and Milmine exchange vigorous solos. Jonathan Kay‘s esraj (a bowed string instrument of Indian origin) joins on the “Elephant Promenade” diptych. His swooping glissandi and surmandallike strumming of the sympathetic strings, bring the group onto more decidedly Indian terrain while producing wondrous tonal blends with Milmine’s horn. When Wilson joins for the second movement of the piece, there’s a feeling of culmination as all four voices enter the fray.
Following a furry of live activity that includes festival appearances and an opening slot for Shantanu Bhattacharya, Amrita’s debut recording beautifully captures the pair’s penchant oblong rhythmic signatures, sighing melodic phrases, textural interplay and, most of all, emotional potency.
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photo by Daniel Zahalka
Composer and musician Anita Katakkar studied tabla in Toronto with composer and musician Ritesh Das from 1999-2009 but has subsequently continued to invest in her growth under the tutelage of Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, revered exponent of the Lucknow tradition and collaborator to towering figures such as Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan, and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. Katakkar’s career began as a member of the Toronto Tabla Ensemble from 2001 to 2009. Following her departure from the ensemble, she formed Rakkatak, a variable-lineup project that foregrounds her tabla compositions amidst an assortment of contributions from various Toronto collaborators. Tus far, Rakkatak has released an EP and three full-length albums. Rakkatak’s song “Heliosphere”, serves as the theme song for CBC Radio’s popular Big City Small World program hosted by Errol Nazareth, while songs from the project have topped earshot’s Global music charts, which chronicle airplay on Canadian community and campus radio. Katakkar has also performed on JUNO award-winning album Tieves of Dreams by Lenka Lichtenberg and Anna Hana Friesova, and toured across Canada with beloved alt-rock group Te Tea Party.
Kayla Milmine fnds inspiration in the new and under-explored sonic possibilities that only the soprano saxophone can ofer. Her unique amalgam of approaches conjures the brash urgency channel by the likes of Anthony Braxton or Roscoe Mitchell yet also embraces the warmth and thoughtfulness of someone like Steve Lacy. In 2019, Milmine released Straight Horn Magick, an album that blended feld recordings with solo soprano saxophone improvisations, and followed it with 2022’s Moods of Yellow. Milmine plays regularly in a trio alongside vocalist/dancer Susanna Hood, and celebrated pianist Tania Gill as well as in the duo Ladyfnger with stalwart Toronto pianist Diane Roblin. In February 2019, she was invited to record with William Parker in a chamberimprov sextet in New York City alongside Kyoko Kitamura (vocal), Matt Moran (vibes), Ben Stapp (tuba), and Rachel Housle (drums). She also collaborates regularly with Sam Newsome, whom she also counts as mentor and has been heard alongside the likes of Nick Fraser, Rob Clutton, Mira Martin-Gray, Germaine Liu, Kurt Newman, and her Women From Space co-founder, Bea Labikova. Milmine earned a Bachelor of Applied Music in jazz performance from Concordia University in Montreal, before moving to Toronto in 2014 and has toured, recorded, and performed consistently for the past 15 years.
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DuO AMRITA — AMRITA
Out: May 15, 2026 — self-released CD/DL
Genre: World Fusion, Hindustani, Jazz/ Improvised Music
Tracklist:
1. Take Flight (5.41)
2. Clinton Street 7 (6.42)
3. English Breakfast (5.49)
4. Dimension Jumping (4.17)
5. Heavy Bird (2.56)
6. Elephant Promenade I (9.20)
7. Elephant Promenade II (5.42)
8. Bon Chaton (7.07)
9. Metamorphosis (4.54)
Line up:
Anita Katakkar — tabla,
Kayla Milmine — soprano saxophone
featuring: Jonathan Kay — esraj (6,7), Zaynab Wilson — cajón (2,4,7,9)
Produced by Justin Gray, Recorded by Alex Gamble at Union Sound Company, Mastered by Mariana Hutten Czapski. Album artwork and design by Bea Labikova.
All music composed by AMRITA except: (2) co-composed with Pratik Rao and (6) co-composed with Vinod Prasanna