Deskjet Scanning

Tried to make multitrack music completely off the grid in Ableton based on a piano improvisation and synthesizer overdubs.
Flutes wherever present are courtesy some carnatic music that was being played on the public address speakers in Majestic Metro Station one day that I recorded on my phone.
Special thanks to Nikhil Narendra for sending my piano recordings through his Walkman.
Special thanks (and apologies in hindsight) to Gaurav Krishna for letting me use his Zoom H4n to record the piano.

Alfa Serene

A piece composed from sounds recorded along the River Betwa. Recordings were made while walking upstream to its source in December 2019 as a part of the Veditum Foundation Moving Upstream Fellowship.

Upstream Along the Betwa

Despite the gradual foregrounding of the artist’s environment, the text of the original work does not acknowledge its wider context beyond merely “a room”. In attempting to perform and record the work in a wholly different context, such as a room in Indiranagar, the differences between Lucier’s environment and mine can become discernible.

I am Sitting in a Room (in Indiranagar)

Madhurya Balan reads a passage from A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam, set to sounds and music.

Chapter 4, A Passage North

A mixtape made from recordings, sketches and other forgotten bits and bobs circa 2017-18.
Sci-fi group discussion at Goobe's Book Republic
Elon Musk avoiding the Sisyphean question

Trash Sounding [Volume 1]

A mixtape made from recordings, sketches and other forgotten bits and bobs circa 2019-20.
Live drums by Bharath Haridas recorded at White Horse Studio, Hyderabad
Tape manipulations by Nikhil Narendra
Various uncle-aunties chit-chatting
Wisdom by Kiran Kumar Sen

Trash Sounding [Volume 2]

Could be but not quite there yet as if it will get there on its own anyway.

Muh Uh Fuh Fizzy Flux

“I Mean Seriously?” is a collage piece I have been working on that is ostensibly about data, social media and fascism in India. The collage is based around a sample of Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-Facebook) vocal from an Anonymous YouTube video wherein he draws connections between the oversight of Facebook designers and engineers, and the widespread use of WhatsApp to organise mob lynchings in India.

The piece also features a traditional valaga dirge recorded at my late grand-aunt’s funeral, and other samples from Counter Strike: Condition Zero, Massive Attack and carnatic fusion from Arun Ramamurthy Trio.

I Mean Seriously?

Palliative self-care.
I made this track while testing out the microphones on my then new Nokia phone with the Hi-Q MP3 Voice Recorder app to record melodica parts.
Some of the rhythm patterns were inspired by the washer cycle on front-loading washing machines.
Most of the synthesizer parts are Ableton stock presets.

Depleted

Collage made from different types of white noise.
Some recordings were made using Software Defined Radio portals today and manipulated in post (tuning into signals from static).
I had also built a VCV Rack patch to try and emulate the Hikari Monos (noise instrument) which fell far short of expectation. However, some of the recordings made with this patch were also utilised in this track.

Cover image is a photo of me multiplied (opacity setting) onto a photo of white noise from a CRT.

Statictics

An organ cover of Nina Simone's I Put a Spell on You that went awry.

Ishan Gupta

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