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Tabla & tonic

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Posted online: Monday , January 14, 2008 at 12:17:42
Updated: Monday , January 14, 2008 at 12:32:53


Ten years ago, music critics in Britain said that the only exposure to Asian music was on a Saturday night after you stumbled into your local tandoori or on the late great George Harrison’s incredible output of Indian inspired records. Talvin Singh, the artist, who remedied that situation with his pioneering Anokha nights at the Blue Note club in East London, returns to Mumbai with an exhibition of photography and sound installations.

The one-time leading proponent of the genre - loosely titled the Asian Underground - had, in the past five years, ironically, gone underground himself. Until he showed up for a one-off gig in Mumbai last year. “The photography kick started other processes like designing album covers,” says Singh, describing his preoccupation with discovering new ways of delivering music. His new album Sweet Box will hit stores later this year; Universal Music is also set to launch a retrospective of the Anokha nights in East London. “As a deejay, I listen to a lot of records. Yet when I make my own records, it’s personal. That’s the great aspect of contemporary art,” he says.

One of Singh’s photographs that will go on display at Everyone is a Camera at the Bombay Art Gallery on Monday captures the Southall tube station signage. “I was brought up in East London so I see things that people there take for granted. Here is Southall translated into Punjabi and Great Western (the rail company) inscribed below that. It had so many associations,” he says.

“I hate the whole Photoshop deal. I don’t do that to any of my images. Of course, you can create art with the tool but I prefer not to,” he says. The tabla proponent is no stranger to marrying art and sound. Singh’s previous experiments include performing at the Tate Gallery in London, creating a sound installation at the Frith Street Gallery in London and composing music for various experimental Dance, Theatre and Film projects. He also recently created an Indian Classical touch screen installation in Brisbane, where children were allowed to loop various instruments to create their own sound.

His explorations of visual experiences are similar to his electronic experiments, with a disdain for digitally produced clichéd music that has only intensified over the years. Singh believes that though it has taken a while for Mumbai to open up to such experiments, it’s happening at the right time. “I read a piece in Art India 10 years ago that there was not enough sound in art, and now it’s happening,” he says.

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