Ragas, Reinterpreted 
Support on bandcamp! https://ghunghru.bandcamp.com/album/with-without
by label head @modularprincess

When I first started writing this album, I started with the intention of taking my hindustani classical roots and giving it a new home, a new skin, a new soul. I’ve been deeply entranced by this idea of taking ragas and transforming them into something others can understand. In many ways, a lot of my work is aiming to make this artform more accessible, more understood, more appreciated. 

My music is all inspired by the ragas I grew up singing. Sometimes it’s intentional, where I’ll start with a raga and compose within its compositional rules. Some other times, I’ll just let my voice take me to an alternative place, where my muscle memory would kick in resulting in stuff that just comes pouring out in all these different scales. 

Intuitively my compositional styles navigated towards what they had always been for my whole life, only this time with different instruments. How can I make my synth a sitar? 

This is an album about being vulnerable with what you hear, about being open to coalescing different worlds into each other in a way that might not be done before. I have a diversity of sounds here - works that are more slow, strange, experimental, emotional and durational, to works that are more fast, expected, melodic, lush, and physical. 

All these songs, are ragas reinterpreted. 

I Feel Incomplete is inspired by Raag Bhairav 
Drown Out The Noise With Your Silence is inspired by Raag Bheempalasi 
Just Like A Dragonfly is inspired by Raag Aasavari 
Is It Love is inspired by Raag Bihag 

In addition to the hindustani classical, there is some experimentation with western classical concepts like harmonization, which does not exist in hindustani music at all. 

I didn’t always follow the rules of the ragas, I’m sure those who know this art can hear that, and maybe purists won't approve. But, I do not call this pure hindustani classical. Instead, this is a strange twisted 21st century interpretation of an ancient artistic practice - personally rejuvenated under the influence of many musical movements that are thriving worldwide that didn’t necessarily originate in India. My instrumentation includes my modular synths (the only instrument besides my voice that I've truly feel one with), my voice, my digitakt, and a lot of samples of the world that have been created and curated with care. 

credits
Lyrics by Arushi Jain 
Composed & Produced by Arushi Jain 
Album Art by Aishwarya Vardhana 
Mixed by Arushi Jain & Its Own Infinite Flower at Room G in San Francisco 
Mastered by Mark Pistel at Room 5 in San Francisco

With & Without

Ragas, Reinterpreted 
by label head @modularprincess

When I first started writing this album, I started with the intention of taking my hindustani classical roots and giving it a new home, a new skin, a new soul. I’ve been deeply entranced by this idea of taking ragas and transforming them into something others can understand. In many ways, a lot of my work is aiming to make this artform more accessible, more understood, more appreciated. 

My music is all inspired by the ragas I grew up singing. Sometimes it’s intentional, where I’ll start with a raga and compose within its compositional rules. Some other times, I’ll just let my voice take me to an alternative place, where my muscle memory would kick in resulting in stuff that just comes pouring out in all these different scales. 

Intuitively my compositional styles navigated towards what they had always been for my whole life, only this time with different instruments. How can I make my synth a sitar? 

This is an album about being vulnerable with what you hear, about being open to coalescing different worlds into each other in a way that might not be done before. I have a diversity of sounds here - works that are more slow, strange, experimental, emotional and durational, to works that are more fast, expected, melodic, lush, and physical. 

All these songs, are ragas reinterpreted. 

I Feel Incomplete is inspired by Raag Bhairav 
Drown Out The Noise With Your Silence is inspired by Raag Bheempalasi 
Just Like A Dragonfly is inspired by Raag Aasavari 
Is It Love is inspired by Raag Bihag 

In addition to the hindustani classical, there is some experimentation with western classical concepts like harmonization, which does not exist in hindustani music at all. 

I didn’t always follow the rules of the ragas, I’m sure those who know this art can hear that, and maybe purists won't approve. But, I do not call this pure hindustani classical. Instead, this is a strange twisted 21st century interpretation of an ancient artistic practice - personally rejuvenated under the influence of many musical movements that are thriving worldwide that didn’t necessarily originate in India. My instrumentation includes my modular synths (the only instrument besides my voice that I've truly feel one with), my voice, my digitakt, and a lot of samples of the world that have been created and curated with care. 

credits
Lyrics by Arushi Jain 
Composed & Produced by Arushi Jain 
Album Art by Aishwarya Vardhana 
Mixed by Arushi Jain & Its Own Infinite Flower at Room G in San Francisco 
Mastered by Mark Pistel at Room 5 in San Francisco

Is It Love?

Just Like A Dragonfly

Drown Out The Noise With Your Silence

I Feel Incomplete Without Sound

www.ghunghru.fm
monthly on NTS Radio
bi-monthly on Boxoutfm
experimental label / radio show / curatorial project by founder @modularprincess & resident @eeeeeeeugenia

SF / Delhi

a space where sound is sound, without needing to be music. 
a space where we promote all audible oddities, in fact, encourage.
a space where we focus on the whole.
a space where time isn’t measured.
a space where no structure is okay. 
a space where silence is accepted.
a space where active listeners flourish.
a space where sounds that normally don’t get heard, get heard.
a space for intellectual physical emotional spiritual analysis of sounds that excite you. 
a space for you to be weird about what you find sonically beautiful.
a space for you to play all the groovy rhythms you want, if you want. 
a space for you to play all the ambient drones you want, if you want.
a space for you to play all the hair standing unexpected glitch you want, if you want. 
a space for you to play none of the things that are expected.
a space for traditional world sounds, in an untraditional manner. 
a space for comfort in discomfort. 
a space for not just sounds, but also words, poetry, whispers and voice.