After announcing plans for his new record label, East Meets West Music, sitar great Ravi Shankar is releasing the first album in his 'Nine Decades' series: 'Nine Decades: Volume 1 (1967-68)' on April 13. The series is planned to include never-before released and rare selections from his 70+ years of performance; 'Nine Decades' refers to the sitarist's age, who recently turned 90.

"What can East Meets West Music do that the other labels have not?" Shankar ponders in the liner notes for this first release. "It is a simple question that my family and I answered with a resounding, 'Everything!' Our motivation was simple: In the last few decades I've seen various recording companies releasing my music with little or no input from me--repackaging releases with new art work and new titles and effectively misusing the public's trust. In the worst instances, my ragas have been sold as generic 'new age' mental and physical well-being potions, a tactic that ignores the classical musical form in which these ragas were composed and erases the history that lives in each...With this label we can continue to bring you my music and introduce to you the work of young musicians who share with me a philosophical respect for this spiritual mode of musical composition."

'Nine Decades: Vol 1' will include 'Raga Gangeshwari,' performed live at an outdoor concert on the banks of the Ganges River in 1968. This version features tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha and tanpura player Kamala Chakravarty. The record also includes temple priests chanting Vedic hymns, and audience reactions to one of Shankar's first performances in the West.