Wild City

Pioneers of the Indian electronic scene, The Midival Punditz offer up a retrospective of their sound for Wild City Mix #102. The past decade or so has seen an undeniably meteoric rise in the popularity of electronic music in India. In simpler times, before festivals like VH1 Supersonic and Sunburn took off (circa 1997, in the age of Anu Malik and the Colonial Cousins) Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj - known together as Midival Punditz, sowed the first seeds of a genre that was going to blow up in a way no one could imagine back then. The duo realised early on that Western dance music didn’t connect with them in the same way that indigenous sounds did, and even now, The Punditz’ sound is instantly recognisable for its unique amalgamation of Indian classical/folk music and popular electronic genres. After making a mark on the map with their collaborative gigs with Tabla Beat Science (Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell), The Midival Punditz honed in on their vision with their event series Cyber Mehfil – a modern update

Mumbai based musician and producer Spryk brings in 2016 with a high energy, exclusive mix for Wild City. Fresh UnMute signee Tejas Nair is a Mumbai based producer and Tabla player who has only recently started making music as Spryk. Nair also runs an audio lab called Press Play, which works with installation sound, games and other projects. With his debut EP slated to release later this month, we thought it was about time to shine the spotlight on his impressive work so far. Growing up in Mumbai before making the journey South of the equator to Australia, Spryk has a cross-continental range of influences that have helped shape his music. His 40-minute mix focuses on his own work in the form of carefully produced original tracks featuring changing textures and chopped up, manipulated vocals as well as dance friendly remixes of Musemesis, SickFlip and more. Wild City Mix #101 begins on a relatively mellow note, moving on to some bass heavy goodness before ascending to frantic, D&B influenced tempos that end

Wild City’s mix series turns 100 and we’re celebrating with a very special selection of tunes from Los Angeles based German producer Robot Koch, who’s all set release his new album ‘Hypermoment’ via MONKEYTOWN Records on 25 November. The mix coincides with Koch’s second tour of the country later this month which will mark the launch of VOI Nights – a new music property initiated by British apparel company Voi Jeans and Wild City that aims to introduce fresh Indian and international acts across the country. Robert Koch has visited to country once before in 2013 for the Border Movement SoundLab in Chennai and as the headliner for the flagship edition of Magnetic Fields Festival at Alsisar Mahal in Rajasthan, where he played an unforgettable set. ‘Hypermoment’ will be the first full-length release from the producer since his relocation to Los Angeles from Berlin. Koch tells us it’s his most personal release yet and was created after seismic shifts in his personal and professional life in Berlin. From what we’

DJs, producers, label owners and veterans in the Indian electronic scene - Ash Roy and Ashvin Mani Sharma (a.k.a. Calm Chor) come together as Bit Of Both for mix #099. There aren’t a lot of Indian acts that have been making and promoting electronic music for as long as Bit Of Both. Ashvin Mani Sharma and Ash Roy started off as founding members of hugely prolific Jalebee Cartel, which at the time also includede G "Force" Arjun (of Else If) and techno maestro Arjun Vagale. 2013 saw the launch of their imprint – Soupherb Records (here’s an old interview we conducted with Roy about it last year), a rapidly growing label that features upcoming producers in electronic music, mainly concentrated on techno, house and minimal. Bit Of Both is a live collaborative electronic project that they launched last year. Their aesthetic is apparent in the mix they sent us – the music features minimal, repetitive grooves with gentle overlying melody and vocals (by Roy). The act’s first music video for ‘Time’ featuring Anushka

Mumbai/Berlin based selector, producer and Regenerate crew member Troja goes deep for mix #098. Trideep Roy is the latest beat maker to contribute to our expanding list of mixes here at Wild City. The Mumbai based producer and DJ has been spinning tunes across the country and established crews like Bhavishyavani future Soundz, Dusdozen and KRUNK in the past. Troja believes his music is a product of his travels in Europe, where’s he spent a large chunk of his life. Despite having started his journey in Scotland, it’s obvious in his mix that Berlin – Germany in general – has played a major role in shaping his musical sensibilities. Troja went back to the city this summer to take up residency at Suicide Circus and play for crowds in the region. The musician is also one half of a collaborative project called Botief. His hour long, exclusive mix for Wild City explores a range of deep house perfect to match the energy of a post party. It begins with Florian Rietze who eases things in with the pulsating ‘Treibhol

Wild City Mix #097 comes from an enormously talented young producer and recent Red Bull Music Academy selectee – The Sine Painter. Jayanth Ramachandra has been on our radar since November 2014, when he innocuously contacted us on SoundCloud with two original productions. We saw promise in the relatively unknown young Bangalore based producer back then, and decided to feature his work under our ‘Dropbox Talents’ section. We weren’t the only one’s who saw something special. In the last few months, Jayanth R has created a space for himself in our forward thinking music community, making more music and performing in his hometown and recently in Delhi. The Sine Painter’s added another feather to his cap after the Red Bull Music Academy announced that he will the only Indian selected to be a part of their Class of 2015, set to take place in Paris in November. The achievement is especially admirable for someone with limited experience, and we hope that his example will push other young bedroom producers to not th

Bangalore native Praveen Achary explores the deep, melodic side of electronica for Wild City Mix #096. The artist is constantly on the move performing and DJing at the countries most popular venues. As a DJ he’s known best for his unique combination of deep, tech and progressive house, though really his sensibilities have never been confined to the manacles of genre (as this mix testifies). 2013 saw the producer launch his very own label – Juicebox Music, with the aim of delivering ‘freshly packed’ sound to electronic music enthusiasts. Praveen Achary has got good things planned for the future of his music and label – his most recent venture saw him remix a track by UK progressive trance giants Above & Beyond, featured below in his mix. Falling just short of 50 minutes, mix #096 sees the artist delve into a side of electronica that isn’t immediately associated with his style. It starts slow and mellow with music by Turkish producer Erdi Irmak and Jamie XX, and Achary keeps the smooth, chill out vibe going

Analog junkie and Mumbai resident Aqua Dominatrix stitches together a delirious collection of synth-pop for mix #95. The musician, real name Akshay Rajpurohit, is also a guitarist for metal bands Scribe and Pangea (making his pretty, dreamy mix all the more surprising). He’s a relatively new solo producer, playing as ‘Aqua Dominatrix’ for only a year and releasing his full-bodied debut album ‘Sadomist’ earlier this year. It’s barely crossed the 6-month mark but ‘Sadomist’ has already collected more than 11000 downloads and over 10,000 streams on bandcamp - no easy feat for any alternative producer in India. But as good as ‘Sadomist’ was, nothing quite compares to Aqua Dominatrix’s live shows. In the few short months that he’s been playing live, Akshay has opened for quite a number of notable homegrown and international musicians including Para for Cuva, the Glitchmob and Pretty Lights. With an album due to come out later this year and a slew of shows planned for the coming months, we thought now was the ri

Karachi native and RBMA Tokyo alumni Tollcrane explores fringe electronica and left-of-centre dance in an exquisite mix for Wild City. In the last couple of years, Talha Asim Wynn has proven time and again that he is a force to be reckoned with, and we’re not limiting our opinion to South Asia. Also a guitarist for shoegaze and noise band //orangenoise, Talha ventured into the electronic realm after a recording session with his bandmates - “…I thought to myself, I really need to make some dance music of my own.” What began as an unassuming idea soon ascended into what would become one of the most prolific talents nurtured out of the region. After experimenting with every genre you can think of (jazz, acid, house to name a few) under the solo moniker Tollcrane for a couple of years (his debut EP Bébo came out in 2011). Talha went on to apply and get selected for the 2014 Tokyo edition of the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy. As for his sound – it’s uniquely, indescribably Tollcrane. ‘Balanced’ is the key

Mumbai based electronic producer Kumail shares a rich, emotive mix for Wild City. The 21-year old music maker has been making music for 4 years now and has put out two EPs so far – his debut ‘Flashbulb Memories’ and the recently released ‘Shift’ EP – a meticulously produced, cleverly constructed downtempo collection of music, reviewed in detail here. Kumail is now signed to Mumbai based booking agency KRUNK and has played a number of shows in the last year, recently opening for Malaysia based duo Bass Sekolah. Influenced by a range of sounds from minimal and ambient (apparent in his work) to rap and dubstep, his music aims to extend beyond the confines of a club, exploring ethereal and cerbral realms that work best on a set of headphones. His exclusive mix for Wild City is shorter than what we’re used to (clocking in at just over half an hour) but packs in a quality assortment of relatively contemporary, beautiful tunes. Shlohmo (a major influence) kicks things off with ‘Same Time’, followed by the cinemat

Indian born, Canada based Iyer turns in a rattling selection of footwork for Wild City Mix #092. It isn’t a surprise that Iyer, with his background in classical Carnatic music, has explored a vast range of genres in his years making music. Though his main area of expertise remains drum n’ bass, the producer has also played with elements in UK garage, dubstep, house, and more recently, footwork. His technical finesse, bold production and ambitious mixes of different styles of music from across the world have helped him cement a place in Singapore’s music community. Iyer’s is currently involved in pushing forward thinking sounds off his digital label Phyla, while pursuing a Bachelors degree in Applied Sciences in Ontario, Canada. Iyer’s exclusive mix for Wild City begins with the oddest two minutes we’ve heard on any of our mixes so far – a giggling intro of Yogi B and Natchatra’s rendition of ‘Go Shorty’. The producer keeps the hip hop vibe going with Sid Vashi’s first-rate Danny Glover cover followed by so

Sri Lanka’s SMPRSN (alternate alias Daffy Maestro) is the next selector to contribute to our growing music division here at Wild City. The Kandi based artist, known to his peers as Gihan Senevirathne, has been making tunes at home since the late 90s. He put out his debut four track EP ‘Home’ on Soundcloud under the name Daffy Maestro in 2013, playing with lo-fi, bass centric electronic sounds with a touch of experimentation. He came into the spotlight as Daffy Maestro in 2010, after he began contact with Border Movement and Colombo based DJ, producer and label owner Asvajit. The last year has seen him play live in his country and also recently in Mumbai for the Border Movement Sound Lab, where he performed and collaborated with acclaimed Indian and German acts including Sandunes, Aqua Dominatrix, SnowShoe and Sasha Perera, Toto Wolf and Oren Gerlitz - together known as Perera Elsewhere. Senevirathne’s Wild City Mix echoes the streamlined auditory aesthetic of SMPRSN which explores the dark contemporary bas

Wild City #090 comes from Karachi based electronic producer TMPST – a genre bending artist who’s been at the forefront of the Pakistani scene for some time. With the third edition of the (Pakistan focused) Border Movement Lounge in India taking place tonight at the Max Mueller Bhavan, we thought it’s about time that we featured another exclusive, carefully curated mixtape from our contemporaries in the west. Asfandyar Khan is the man behind the 2-step, garage inspired beats and synths of TMPST as well as a range of downtempo, often hauntingly composed ambient music he records under his own name. He’s been making music since 2010 and equipped with nothing other than a guitar, released his first album, titled ‘Snow Makes Things Perfect’. The musician’s affinity for bass and beat only became apparent in 2012 with the birth of his ‘post-dubstep’ and garage inspired outfit TMPST. Despite TMPST’s foray into the world of bass however, he never quite manages to let go of the ambient sounds that began his journey an

Maitreya Rajurkar a.k.a Midland Sparks is the face of and one half of Pune based DJ duo; Tripshot Crew. An independent project started with the aim of exploring untraditional, modern day bass music that has influenced him so greatly and shaped the release of his excellent debut EP ‘Rundrum’ last year. Keeping this in mind, it's no surpirse that Rajurkar explores a wide range of genres within this project - all that fall under the vast umbrella of latter day bass. His impeccable mix proves this, by showcasing everything from hip-hop and trap to drum n’ bass and footwork - curated and arranged for discerning listeners with a meticulousness that true devotees of modern electronica will immediately recognise. The mix begins on a high note with a Nicolas Jaar retake on Shlohmo’s ‘Rained The Whole Time’, keeping energy levels right up there with that sublime combination of hip-hop instrumentation and bass in acts like DZA and the incredible Romare, which make appearances in its first half. The latter half of the

Our latest Wild City mix comes from talented Austrian producer and DJ - B.Visible. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because the beatsmith was also present at Magnetic Fields Festival last year. Those who were present would remember him for his robust, melodic and beat punctuated set that had heads dancing, full throttle, at the most unearthly hours of the morning. B.Visible found his calling in 2004, after getting his hands on a pair of turntables. He soon fell in love with the art of DJ'ing and naturally made it into the world of production not long after, influenced heavily at the time by Golden Era sounds. The producer debuted under French label Cosmonostro with his two part EP series ‘Chaos and Order’. The first of the series - ‘Chaos’, was released last year and saw B.Visible play with lush synthwork, choppy vocal samples and immersive drum patterns. The second part ‘Order’, which came out barely a month ago, certainly packs a punch and delivers some incredible dancefloor music, slightly higher on the

You’d probably recognise Taru Dalmia as the face behind popular ska/jungle/reggae/dub act - Delhi Sultanate and as a member of D&B and jungle collective, BASSFoundation. His solo venture - BASSFoundation Roots goes back to basics and explores the sounds that initiated dub and jungle music in the early years, dedicating itself to reggae roots and keeping things strictly analogue. The vinyl only policy comes as resistance to “the new wave of dance music played off laptops with a ‘louder-the-better’ attitude” (as is described on BFR's website), hearkening back to the days of vinyl old school soundsystem culture. BASSFoundation is signed to booking agency KRUNK, which tells us that Delhi Sultanate spent the better part of 2014 pressing his tunes on wax and building an enviable box of rare dubplates from some of reggae’s biggest influencers. His Wild City mix includes some of those rarities, making it truly one of a kind. The mix was in fact stitched together before the 2014 edition of Magnetic Fields Festival,

To call DJ Vadim a prolific performer would be a gross understatement. On an average, the selector performs 170 to 180 shows a year and has played in over 63 countries. 64 post December, of course, since he’ll be performing for the first time in the subcontinent at Magnetic Fields Festival in Rajasthan. The producer and DJ was born in Saint Petersburg - Russia (then Leningrad, USSR), raised in London and now splits his time between Berlin and New York. In 1994, Vadim founded his own independent record label ‘Jazz Fuzz’ but signed to Coldcut’s legendary indie label Ninja Tune the following year and in 2007, moved to his current label BBE (Barely Breaking Even). His music, which combines, hip-hop, soul, reggae and electronica has led him to perform with massive names in the industry including DJ Krush, Stevie Wonder, The Roots, Prince, Public Enemy, Dilated Peoples, Kraftwerk, Fat Freddys Drop, Super Furry Animals, and Paul Weller. Vadim’s sound ranges from percussion heavy rhythms and classic hip-hop to or

Rohan Hastak started making music the traditional way – on a guitar, as part of a live band called ‘Kuru’ while he was based in Canada. But his musical identity now as Big City Harmonics is anything but traditional - inspired by pioneers of contemporary electronica such as Four Tet and Nightmares on Wax, the musician released his beat driven debut EP, called Foreword to hugely positive reviews last year. A bit like his own music which tends to rest in the zone that lies between uptempo dance and bedroom listening, Rohan Hastak’s mix is difficult to define, but unsurprisingly high on quality. He begins his assembly on an unusual note, layering Allen Ginsberg’s reflective poem - ‘The Sunflower Sutra’ over the atmospheric plinks of Air’s ‘Alone In Kyoto’. Hastak’s little patchwork tapestry of sound includes some familiar top-notch electronica acts ranging from Boards of Canada and Little Dragon to Nosaj Thing, Brian Eno and homegrown talent, Dualist Inquiry. His interpretation of Flying Lotus’s ‘Camel’ layered

Machli was formed in 2013 in a small colony called SFS in a satellite town outside of Bangalore by Aniruddh Menon, Musharraf Shaikh, Sandhya Visvanathan and Maitreya Mer, and we’ve been smitten by their sound since we stumbled upon them earlier this year. Despite only releasing a handful of singles on their SoundCloud page, the oddball bunch of art and design students caught our attention with their curiously experimental brand of music, unquestionably producing some of the most interesting and complex sounds this year. Their style tends to be contemplative, sometime melancholy, but always hopeful and affably unpretentious. Each band member brings his or her inspiration and sensibility to Machli so it’s of little wonder that the exclusive mix that they’ve created for us is so diverse. This is a heady amalgam of sounds that despite its outwardly chalk-and-cheese appearance, works surprisingly well. Machli’s mix fluctuates between a variety of music from the mellow, jazz grooves and beats of Trilok Gurtu, to

One of India's longest running and most prolific stage names; Gaurav Raina - as one half of the Midival Punditz - is a familiar name for music lovers and peers alike. In a step in a new direction, his solo project 'GRAIN', showcases a musician within a musician. Sonic textures that are deeper, darker – even melancholic – zigzagging through genres with confidence. In our eyes, some of his most technically adept and exciting output thus far. ‘Grey to Silver’ is GRAIN’s debut LP out this month via Times Music. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Karsh Kale, Monica Dogra, Anoushka Shankar, Ankur Tewari, Brooklyn Shanti and Talia Bentson - it doesn’t disappoint. Like something created by any of the worlds longest standing producers, Grey To Silver will want you to pat yourself on the back for sticking with it. It's beautiful, ugly and also a little bit weird. And in that vain so is his Wild City mix. In an unexpected turn from the producer it includes tracks from acts such as The Bug, Darkside, Atoms Fo