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Where Visual Jockeys and Electronica Artists Mix It Up

Nov 06, 03:23pm

A new TV and electronica gig series showcases exactly how inter-connected visuals are to music 
 Photo Courtesy: Pepsi MTV Indies

It’s about time visual jockeys – the real kind, not the ones who used to read off a prompter on your favourite music programme – got recognised for the skill that goes into making the artist on stage sound and look good.

The likes of Oblique aka Sourya Sen, Godgamut aka Sachin Pillai and Shazeb Arif S, Wolves aka Joshua D’mello and Jash Reen, Transhuman Collective comprising Swapnil Rao and Soham Sarcar and Moebius aka Nikunj Patel have been picked to work with India’s best new electronica artists as part of Superdry Krunk Live Sessions. And it’s not just a live gig series around the country to showcase the collaboration with artists like Madboy/Mink, Your Chin, Aqua Dominatrix, Nicholson, Ox7gen, Alowala, Kumail and Donn Bhat + Passenger Revelator, but also a TV series that explains how the two sides work together, airing every Thursday at 7 pm (and later uploaded online) on Pepsi MTV Indies.

From working with light installations to inks and colours, the musicians also performed new material, such as Donn Bhat’s upcoming EP Connected or Akshay Rajpurohit aka Aqua Dominatrix’s songs like ‘Liquorice Alley’ and ‘Tribunal Giulietta’. Rajpurohit, who worked with Wolves, told us both parties “decided to surprise each other” with no prior homework or discussions taking place, apart from sharing the song tempos. Rajpurohit says, “We went on vibe. I do record videos all time at home in my studio, so this was like them making that video for me.”

Oblique aka Sourya Sen, who worked with Madboy/Mink and Your Chin, brought two different setups to the table. He says the experience was very different from preparing for a live show. Sen told us, “At most clubs and festivals, the projector and the screen (or LED panels) is not in your hands. This, however, was a completely controlled environment. Big studio space, an art director and production controller helping me out (and a big shout out to both Tanvi and Kartikeya for all their help, it wouldn't have been possible without them), leading to not having to worry about technical and production aspects but purely focussing on the design and visual content.”

For Madboy/Mink, who performed songs like ‘Sharabi’, ‘Powders’ and ‘National Highway Cruise’, and Your Chin, who played ‘Fall Someplace’, ‘Fighting the Sumo’ and ‘Who Would’ve Thought’, Oblique set up old CRT televisions and mapped visuals onto screens behind the performers. For Aqua Dominatrix, Wolves set up a triangle-shaped light enclosure around Rajpurohit’s analog setup. The artist says, “Wolves are like Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park – if you push play, something good will always come up.”

For his debut in Hyderabad, Rajpurohit will perform mostly new material and also songs off his debut Sadomist. He adds, “The major difference is that now I’m thinking of material as stuff that I will play live. I’m actually restricting myself and not working with borrowed stuff like I did with Sadomist. You have less, but you have to get creative with it. That’s insanely fun.”

Aqua Dominatrix, Steve & Kini perform at Superdry KRUNK Live Sessions at the Farm World Café in Hyderabad on November 6. More details on the Facebook event page.

Watch the episode here

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