The Right Noises
A left-field Indian electronica playlist for the uninitiated
JINRAJ JOSHIPURA Space Liner 2001 (Excerpt)
Only a three-and-a-half-minute extract of this 30-minute tribute to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is available online. Recorded in 1970 by a 19-yearold NID student, it’s an attempt to imagine sound as outside of history and musical tradition.
CHARANJIT SINGH Raga Todi
Taken from the composer’s long-forgotten but now iconic 1984 album Ten Ragas to A Disco
Beat, this attempt to translate the ragas to synthesisers would end up prefiguring some of the most recognisable sounds of electronic dance music.
Teddy Boy Kill - Tonic
Teddy Boy Kill’s truly wild live sets were never properly captured on record, but their blend of glitch, hip-hop, alternative music and synth explorations made for a wildly eclectic mix. Turn on, tune in, weird out.
Hemant S.K. Techie Commits Suicide
A genial, soft-spoken elder of the noise scene, Hemant makes computer-generated noise music that throbs and gyrates with distorted menace. This track is one of the highlights of his 2018 album, a grimly witty record.
Bombay Black - Uncertain
It’s hard to pick a single track off the second eponymous album by electro-funk-jazz supergroup Bombay Black, but Uncertain’s off-kilter IDM rhythms under eerie snatches of jazz piano and funk bass were at the cutting-edge of 2002 electronica.
JAMBLU Gone Swimming
The title track of JAMBLU’s 2019 album, this track showcases the artiste’s diverse range—lo-fi tape hiss meets glitchy synths meets confessional R&B. It’s a masterclass in making a pop song from wildly divergent ingredients.
Disco Puppet - HAOAH
Bengaluru’s Shoumik Biswas has moved to a more intimate, guitar-led sound on his latest album, but this playful track from 2017’s Princess This exemplifies his genre-bending approach to composition. Redlining bass pulses with martial precision, and synths skitter like knives on a kitchen sink.
The Earth Below / SISTER - Drenched
Though Ruhail Qaisar specialises in extreme noise and dark lo-fi ambient music, he uses his noise-making abilities for The Earth Below’s cinematic, post-apocalyptic soundscape on this collaboration. It’s a great track, buoyed by the give-and-take between two experimental artistes.