Intrigued by the amalgam of the words “Asian” and “Electronica”, I set forth to check out this musical act that forms part of the impressive line-up in the recently concluded MOSAIC Music Festival 2010. Having gotten the ticket on a whim, it wasn’t till I plonked down on the seat in the Recital Studio at the Esplanade that I realised I was about to attend a workshop and not a full-fledged performance.
For those of you adventurous foodies who have ever strolled into an unfamiliar restaurant promising fusion cuisine, you know the final gastronomic result ends in two familiar extremes. You either love it or want your money back. Similar to this uncertainty is the not knowing what this brand of music by Karsh Kale and the MIDIval Punditz would sound like, especially since it could be loosely described in the too-painfully cliché term of fusion music between East and West.
With that sceptic frame of mind, I couldn’t help trying to figure out how the various elements on stage would come together to create music while I sat waiting for the workshop to start. A flute lies on the table with two mac notebooks sharing the same space. Next to it are two tablas perched on a stand. Would this music be just sounds being played simultaneously or music that would actually sound congruous?
Almost like they could hear my thoughts and wanted to put the sceptic to rest, Karsh Kale, MIDIval Punditz and Ajay Prassana took to the stage at that moment and immediately started to play. In the accomplished bansuri flautist Ajay’s hands and mouth, the previously inanimate flute came to life with his every breath. Hauntingly beautiful notes echoed and drew me in. This was soon followed by soft but firm taps on the tabla by Karsh. Lost in this engaging musical dialogue between the flute and the tabla, I did not even realise that the MIDIval Punditz – New Delhi beatmasters Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj have already started weaving in their magic and adding their voice seamlessly to this musical conversation from behind the two mac notebooks on the table.
Titled PD7, the song from “Breathing Under Water” – an album by Karsh Kale and Anoushka Shankar – ended after a mesmorising eight minutes or so, and was followed by an introduction by Karsh on what PD7 stood for and the basic elements of traditional Indian music. He also explained how the live performance of their songs always takes on an organic form and no two live performances of the same song sound exactly the same. Like an unscripted play, the musicians are allowed some free reign of their input to the musical conversation. The end result is one harmonious fusion of all the different elements.
The question-and-answer session that followed illustrated how intrigued the audience was. Questions came fast and furious and they range from the technical – “How do you ensure the beats from two notebooks do not cancel or clash with each other?” to personal – “Where and how do you get inspiration?”
At the end of the hour long question-and-answer session, the audience erupted into a unanimous “yes” when Karsh asked if we had time for yet another song. The enthralling opening track – PD7 had obviously left us wanting for more. At the end of the workshop, what kind of music did I actually learn more about? Call this music Asian Electronica, fusion music or East meets West, names do not matter as they remain just that: definitions that forcibly categorise what do not necessarily need definition or categorisation. Just like Karsh’s reply when asked how much more Eastern, Indian or Western does his music lean towards – “We’re all a little bit of something. No one is purely one thing”. What people want to call this brand of music is not important to me for I love it, regardless of its name.
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