Lal's debut album, Corners, is superb; soulfully trippy and immensely enjoyable, standing out like a musical Koh-i-Nur in the midst of a growing number of North American Desi records dabbling in electronic sounds. The fact that artists Rosina Kazi and Nicholas Murray are Toronto-based doesn't hurt. Released on an independent Toronto label, Public Transit Records, Corners is the kind of album whose honest simplicity would likely be lost in the sort of A&R tufaan that a larger label would try to raise. As Rosina notes: "We're all still struggling, because it's totally independent, but at least you struggle with people that you trust." Slick programming and bilingual lyrics have helped Lal to carve out a distinct and consistent in which Murr's deliciously funky basslines and Rosina's Angrezi and Bengali tunes can take center stage side-by-side. Don't be fooled by the makeshift pagri she sports nowadays; Rosina Kazi is no Punjabi sardarji in drag, but Bangla and proud.

She confesses that, when she was younger, "I felt insecure about my Indian side, but at the same time I was proud of it. It was a really messed-up headspace. But finally, in the last three years, I've become very strong in accepting being a South Asian Canadian." That is, she's comfortable accepting a dual identity, as confusing as it sometimes is, rather than trying to pick and choose. The majority of the tracks on Corners are not suffused with a stereotypically Desi or Bangladeshi sound - in fact, Lal was accused by one magazine of misrepresenting themselves as a South Asian group, a charge which Rosina dismisses as nonsense. The sound is a reflection of the artists' identities, individually and as a team; Rosina identifies herself as a Bengali Canadian, therefore her music is innately Bengali, and no pitter-patter of sampled tablas is required.

On the other hand, two of the strongest tracks on Corners incorporate Rosina's Bengali awaaz as well as Prithi Narayanan's translucent veena, transformed by Murr's wickedly deliberate beats into a distinctively Desi trip. The most striking feature of "Bolo" and "Projaproti" is the ease with which Rosina slips into a piece with a Bengali ethos in the midst of half a dozen tracks performed on a hip hop tip. The lyrics to both songs are simple and well researched - that is, Rosina was careful enough to call home to ask her parents whether her Bangla was correct. In the process of trying to incorporate her culture into the music, she's discovered some interesting things about herself. Western musicians would always tell her that when she sang, her notes were flat, but, in her own words, "I'd be like, 'No, I'm not flat.' I had to sit down with a friend of mine to realize that a lot of the notes I was singing are in the Indian scale; notes that Western music doesn't use as often." Desi culture can be sneaky that way.

Financially, things haven't been easy for Rosina and Murr. Getting funding for videos has been a pain in the puttha, and the two have been incessantly moving from apartment to apartment all over Toronto since they started living together. But, as qismat would have it, Murr's and Rosina's hard times have helped to positively shape and to ameliorate their album, rather than subtracting from its virtues. For instance, the title track "Corners" was inspired by Murr's and Rosina's street corner observations as they shifted from place to place. As much as Rosina would like to have featured a few sitar orchestras and sarangi armadas on Corners, Lal's budget just wasn't up to it. Consequently, they've churned out a very minimalist album, with most tracks consisting of Murr's programming, Rosina's voice, and little else.

The amazing thing is that despite the paucity of musical elements - or because of it - Corners has turned out to be more pleasing to the ear than the majority of the albums presently coming out of the UK, the heartland of South Asian electronica for the past decade. You can sample MP3s of the album at PTR's website, and check out Lal's performance at MyBindi's Anniversary Bash on the 22nd of February at Fez Batik. Listen for yourself; Corners is well worth the price.