Unique Vas Sound Unites Voice, Drum

The two most essential instruments of music are the voice and the drum. Vas, a new world-music ensemble, focuses on both the polarities and the attachments between those elements with the singing of Azam Ali and the drumming of Greg Ellis.

The duo’s performance at LunaPark on Saturday night added colorful supplemental support from cello, harmonium and tamboura, but the heart of the performance rested in the dynamic interaction between Ali and Ellis.

Most of the music came from the pair’s new Narada album, “Sunyata,” a collection of original works, composed by Azam, that have the feel of traditional Middle Eastern music.

Azam, born in Iran and educated in India, has a pure, penetratingly high voice reminiscent at times of Madredeus’ Teresa Salgueiro.

Backing her vocals with the chime-like sounds of the santour, similar to the hammered dulcimer, she was at the center of Vas’ music. A slender figure in a long dark gown, her face framed by long ringlets of jet-black hair, she filtered her exotic-sounding melodies into compelling, almost trance-like projections that soon had some listeners dancing in highly personal approximations of Middle Eastern movements.

Counterbalancing Azam’s ethereal presence, Ellis played a colorful assortment of percussion, moving easily from tablas to shakers, from frame drum to temple bells. Both underscoring and countering Azam’s vocals, he worked with her in almost symbiotic synchronization.

Compared by some to the group Dead Can Dance, Vas is far more than that: a uniquely individual-sounding ensemble with a promising future in world music.