The indie scene in India is building up to a crescendo

Spettacolare l'articolo The indie scene in India is building up to a crescendo, di Satarupa Paul, pubblicato da Brunch nel numero in edicola ieri, articolo dedicato alla scena musicale indiana indipendente, alternativa, non correlata con l'industria cinematografica e con le colonne sonore, né con la tradizione classica. Festival, locali, concerti, nuovi gruppi, nuovi generi, testi in lingue regionali, video: il pezzo analizza e illustra il fenomeno in modo piuttosto accurato. Di seguito un estratto:

'Winds of change

In the last five years, India has become a cauldron of a steaming, brewing independent music scene - scores of bands, acts and artistes are emerging from every part of the country, and they’re experimenting with sounds and cross pollinating genres like never before! The credit, in part, goes to the many music festivals mushrooming across the country, an ever-increasing crop of venues promoting live gigs, big brands sponsoring indie-exclusive TV channels and programmes, and a growing social media presence of the bands and acts. But behind such organised marketing initiatives, what has really changed is the passion and dedication of the artistes themselves, to push the envelope just a little further. And the mindsets and attitudes of people towards an alternative culture. (...)

Rewind, Stop, Play

The newly-independent India of the 1950s was just beginning to come of age. Its small population of westernised urban citizens was trying to find ways of expressing itself and music was one of them. In his book India Psychedelic, the Story of a Rocking Generation, journalist Sidharth Bhatia writes, "The music of choice in the 1950s was either jazz or soulful songs by the likes of Frank Sinatra... Jazz, for all its working-class, ghetto origins in the US, had morphed into the music of choice of the urban upper classes." By the turn of the decade, the Beatles were setting off a storm in England that would sweep the entire world. "In socialist India, too, youngsters put on their dancing shoes to groove to this new sound, so different from anything they had heard till then," writes Bhatia. "Some were sufficiently inspired to grow their hair, put on their bell-bottoms and pick up their guitars. And the Indian pop and rock revolution was born."

Madboy/Mink

When everybody danced

Rock and its many derivatives - soft, hard, metal - continued to rule the non-Bollywood music scene in India over the next decade into the ’70s. In the early 1980s though, rock began to be overshadowed by disco - a movement started almost single-handedly by a musician from Bangalore named Biddu. (...) Simultaneously, there was another influence entering the Indian indie scene. According to an essay by electronic music producer Samrat B in the 2010 HUB yearbook, India’s first and only anthology of electronic music, “The late ’80s in Goa saw the rise of tourism... Electronic music and sound was arriving to Indian shores via DJs, writers, filmmakers and tourists... It is in this socio-cultural melting pot that the popular, psychedelic electronic music form now known as ‘Goa trance’ was born.” With the arrival of music channels on television in the mid-90s, music enthusiasts in India started getting influenced by Western rock sounds again - but this time the sounds were harder and rapidly changing. Bands that formed during this time evolved their styles from rock to alternative rock, progressive rock, metal and others. It was only natural for the independent scene of the ’90s and 2000s to take these musical influences forward and lead up to this current decade - a time of widespread popularity of electronica and its many sub-genres, and of a resurgence of older genres like disco, cabaret, jazz, blues, rock and more - all permuted, combined, mixed, remixed and fused with each other, with a garnishing of traditional Indian influences. (...)

Prateek Kuhad

Brunch recommends - Seven promising new indie music artistes you should listen to:

- Tritha Electric, Formed in: 2011, Based in: New Delhi, Genre/Sound: Indian classical-folk-Western psychedelic-punk

- Madboy/Mink, Formed in: 2013, Based in: Mumbai, Genre/Sound: Funk-nu disco

- Prateek Kuhad, Started performing live in: 2011, Based in: New Delhi, Genre/Sound: Indie folk-pop

- DJ Kerano, Started performing live in: 2015, Based in: New Delhi, Genre: Progressive house

- Alobo Naga & The Band, Formed in: 2010, Based in: Nagaland, Genre: Contemporary progressive rock with pop sounds

- The Ganesh Talkies, Formed in: 2011, Based in: Kolkata, Genre: Alternate-rock-pop-Bollywood kitsch

- Peter Cat Recording Co. (PCRC), Formed in: 2010, Based in: New Delhi, Genre/Sound: Gypsy jazz-cabaret'.

DJ Kerano

Alobo Naga & The Band

The Ganesh Talkies

Peter Cat Recording Co.

Penn Masala: Evolution of Bollywood music

Il gruppo di canto a cappella Penn Masala si è formato nel 1996 alla University of Pennsylvania. I membri, provenienti dall'Asia meridionale, cambiano periodicamente, perché gli studenti che si laureano lasciano il posto a matricole dotate di talento. Il gruppo ha all'attivo ben otto album ed una compilation. Il 29 marzo 2014 i Penn Masala hanno caricato in YouTube un video divertentissimo, Evolution of Bollywood music, nel quale, in soli cinque minuti, ripercorrono la storia delle colonne sonore hindi a partire dagli anni quaranta. Il progetto è davvero geniale, e il filmato si è guadagnato ad oggi quasi 765.000 visite.

Nitin Sawhney: The lodger

Se siete a Londra in vacanza, vi suggerisco un evento di sicuro interesse: il 21 luglio 2012 al Barbican verrà proiettata in prima mondiale l'edizione restaurata de Il pensionante (The lodger), film muto del 1927 diretto da Alfred Hitchcock. Per l'occasione, il talentuoso musicista Nitin Sawhney ha sfornato una colonna sonora nuova di zecca, che verrà eseguita dal vivo dalla London Symphony Orchestra. Nitin ha composto le colonne sonore di diverse pellicole, fra cui Split wide open, Il destino nel nome - The namesake e I figli della mezzanotte. Fra gli album, vi consiglio lo splendido Prophesy del 2001 (un assaggio da leccarsi anche le dita dei piedi: Moonrise).

The pulsing world of Nitin Sawhney

Vi segnalo l'articolo The pulsing world of Nitin Sawhney, di Rahul Verma, pubblicato il 20 febbraio 2012 da Rolling Stone India. Di seguito un corposo estratto:

'Considering all nine of Nitin Sawhney’s albums proudly display his Indian heritage with elements including tablas, qawwali, ragas, Kathak rhythms, Sanskrit poems, and songs in Hindi woven into the DNA of his spellbinding music, it’s odd that he’s never played a live show in India. “I feel comfortable in India and it’s the first time in three years that I’m going, normally I’m there much more frequently,” says the classically-trained pianist, flamenco guitarist and club DJ. This anomaly will be laid to rest this month when the tall, lean (...) Sawhney will take the stage at Blue Frog in Delhi and Mumbai, and the Sulafest in Nasik. “Previously I’ve only DJ-ed in India, which is strange as touring India with my band is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a very long time but it’s never worked out. So I’m really pleased it’s finally happening,” says the 47-year-old as we settle into a sparse, spare room adjacent to his studio, located in a converted 19th century dairy in Brixton, South London. (...) 

The British-born composer, who was part of the Asian Underground scene alongside artists such as Talvin Singh and Asian Dub Foundation, attracted attention with Beyond Skin, his fourth studio album, that was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1999. Since then Sawhney (...) has written music for video games and has collaborated and written for the likes of Sting, Sir Paul McCartney, Brian Eno, Shakira, The London Symphony Orchestra and Cirque Du Soleil.

The sweet stirring magic of Sawhney’s finessed, swirling arrangements of flamenco, drum & bass, dub, folk and soul, belies the fact Last Days of Meaning addresses a deeper, powerful message. “I try to catch a sense of the zeitgeist, of what’s worrying me but I didn’t want to make an album that was overtly about politics. Hopefully Last Days of Meaning captures the parochialism, narrow-mindedness, and paranoia that’s been fed by political opportunism and media in the last ten years.” (...) Gentle, stark folk dominates the album and sits comfortably alongside billowing sitar and tabla funk, drifting ethereal vocals, and school choirs.

Last Days of Meaning’s combination of balancing politics with elegant music is a tried and tested method for Sawhney and makes him stand out in an increasingly bland, anodyne, music industry. Beyond Skin explores identity and challenges India’s quest to be a nuclear power; Prophesy (2001) questions whether technology makes us happier; Human (2003) celebrates unity in a divided world; Philtre (2005) offers a soothing balm for a troubled planet driven by conflict while London Undersound covers 7/7’s terror attacks, the rise of celebrities and media dumbing down.

One of Sawhney’s key beliefs is celebrating the beauty and power of cultures crossing over, and the message really hits home in his live shows when the complexities of fusing flamenco and qawwali, tablas and drum & bass, and blues and ragas, and the extraordinary vision and subtlety of the music, comes to vivid, spine-tingling life. (...) Sawhney is usually either perched on a stool with flamenco guitar or on keys and is the enigmatic, unassuming centrifugal force around which it all, dizzyingly, revolves.

The grace, emotion and originality in Sawhney’s music makes him an ideal choice for composing the score to director Deepa Mehta’s film adaptation of Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie’s landmark novel that many cite as one of the greatest of all time and which is scheduled for release later this year.

How closely has he worked with Mehta and Rushdie on the score? “It’s been very collaborative. Salman Rushdie’s been in the background, but he co-wrote the screenplay with Deepa, which I think he needed to do to retain his vision of it. Deepa and I have been talking and working through themes, over-arching narratives and characterization. We discussed at length what ragas might be appropriate for certain characters, so the film ties in with Indian history and keeps that authenticity. I’ve come up with a system of melodies based around ragas, with each raga attached to a character. That gives the score a sense of rootedness and complements the characters’ feelings. Salman Rushdie got in touch with me via Twitter and said, ”˜It’s the best score since Ravi Shankar and Pather Panchali’. For him to say that was amazing, the guy’s a genius, I love his work,” says Sawhney, almost disbelievingly.

Both Rushdie and Mehta are pariahs of sorts: Rushdie lived in virtual hiding with a security detail for over 15 years and still keeps a low profile following a fatwa ordering his death as a result of the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988. Similarly Mehta has been dogged by Hindu extremists, and labeled anti-Hindu, since Fire (1996) which depicted a lesbian relationship in a Hindu family, forcing her film Water (2005) to be shot in Sri Lanka.

Is Sawhney worried by working with controversial figures Rushdie and Mehta? “No, it’s great to work with giants like Salman and Deepa. They are controversial characters, because they’re intelligent and not afraid to say what they think. People are threatened because they have strong ideas but there are things Salman says I agree with and other things he says I don’t agree with and the same applies to Deepa. As creators of amazing, imaginative work, I couldn’t be happier working with them,” says Sawhney.

Rushdie, Mehta, and Sawhney’s collaboration not only reflects the growing influence of the Indian diaspora but in terms of reflecting the book is a match made in heaven. “I’m of Indian heritage but grew up in Britain, Salman Rushdie has a Muslim background and Deepa’s of Indian background but lives in Canada and together we’re working on Midnight’s Children, which is about fragmentation.”

Sawhney’s no stranger to scoring films; in fact releasing albums is a small part of what he’s achieved over the past two decades. In recent years he’s conceived a soundtrack to the silent 1929 Indian film Throw of the Dice, a magnificent, Mahabharat-esque tale of romance and adventure directed by Franz Osten, with the London Symphony Orchestra. He’s taken this on tour to Chicago, Toronto, Florence, Auckland, and Amsterdam, and hopes to bring to India in the future. “I’d love to project the film onto some palace walls,” he says.

Sawhney will be scoring the king of suspense Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger at the British Film Institute, again with the London Symphony Orchestra. Surely Sawhney’s one of the few people on the planet who’s as comfortable and capable with a globally renowned orchestra in the world of classical music, as DJing in clubs and releasing a mix for iconic, revered UK club and bastion of electronic music, Fabric.

Also in the last five years, workaholic Sawhney’s been gradually immersing himself in sound design for video games. Rather than a teenage time-pass, he sees video games as the cutting edge of technology, and culture. “I really enjoy working in gaming it’s an emerging art form. Seeing the physics of motion in virtual reality really interests me. People dismiss gaming as trivia but it’s an expression of consciousness, that’s why gaming interests quantum physicists too, they relate to Hindu philosophy too,” he explains.

It’s observations like these that evidence a keen, enquiring mind and make Sawhney the ultimate dinner party guest. Here’s a man who connects video games with Hindu Vedas and the Big Bang, discusses politics in Burma, race relations in Britain, Fox News’ disinformation and the London Riots (“a symptom of a capitalist society out of control”). He can effortlessly light up a room with stories about his mate Paul McCartney (he appears on LP London Undersound), A.R. Rahman who he took for dosa in London over 15 years ago only for Rahman to be harassed by a waiter insisting on photographs, or how his cousin, actress Lara Dutta is due to give birth around the time of his India gigs. “She said to me either she can come to my gig or I can come to her delivery,” jokes Sawhney'.

Aamir Khan in Network East Late

[Archivio] Vi segnalo i video - prima e seconda parte - della partecipazione di Aamir Khan, nel 2001, al programma britannico Network East Late condotto da Russell Peters, comico canadese di origine indiana. Il filmato include anche un'esibizione (purtroppo non integrale) dal vivo della talentuosissima Susheela Raman, cantante britannica di origine indiana.