Years ago, I wrote a piece in Telugu on finding the grave of a mostly forgotten East India Company officer, Charles Phillip Brown, who accidentally ended up rescuing Telugu literature from obscurity. In fact, I presented this at the then World Telugu Literary Conference.

Now through the magic of Gen AI, you can hear a podcast discuss it at length in English.

The original article: https://medium.com/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%97%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%AE%E0%B0%AF-%E0%B0%B5%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A7%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%81/%E0%B0%B8%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B7%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%9F%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%97%E0%B0%AE%E0%B1%81-f2ee9777bf01

Sashtāngamu: Finding Charles Brown’s grave in dreary London

A slightly more refined track than the previous one. Still has that jazzy Louis-Armstrong-influenced sax, but with more grooves and a bit of a reggae flavour in the middle.

The 3:05 To Dubistan

My first foray into blues! Or more precisely, blues-inspired music, with some tips o' hat to disco, R&B and jazz as well. 

Meant to do some vocal lyrics too, but thought I'd start off with some instrumental refrain to get a better feel for the blues 8-scale. 

Equatorial Blues

So time was when I spent two enjoyable days listening to live flamenco in Granada, leaving me with some sort of a musical itch to scratch.

Las Cuevas Hacen Eco En (The Caves Echo At) Sacromonte

Blues with some flamenco-infused percussion and multiple guitars. I had been trying to get some rock going with Mediterranean drums; a bit of tip o' hat to Rachid Taha's Rock El Casbah somewhere in there, but trying to stay true to blues. 

Guitarra Blues

The fictitious Himalaya Sheri, Jalna and Brass Band at Pathergatti was asked to play some jalna / sheri sounds for a wedding, perhaps an old Bollywood favourite or two. 

Unfortunately though, the lead keyboard player wasn't particularly feeling cheerful, given that he was still reminiscing about his ex, but more crucially, because the band's trumpeters, having ditched him for a higher-paying gig, sent in their cousin who plays the harmonica and "can clap very well". 

There were already a guy who did the drums and another who played the sax (as any posh wedding band does these days), but perhaps if there was also a guitarist who could keep the groove...

The Himalaya Sheri, Jalna & Brass Band

Was bored on the long ride home on the MRT yesterday, so decided to compose an orchestral piece on the phone with GarageBand. Took inspiration from all the cars and people scurrying back in the setting sun. 

Album art taken from Wikicommons via Flickr, and had been shared under a CC v2 licence. (https://goo.gl/jbW91X)

Rush Hour at Jurong Kerchil

Monsoons are back again in this part of the world!

The Monsoon rains pour gently but incessantly, interrupted by the occasional lightning and thunder. In fact, that's exactly like an incessant strumming on a flamenco guitar, interrupted by the occasional ukelele, piano and, yes, a groovy blues harmonica.


Monsoon Blues | ఋతుపవనాల వైరాగ్య రాగం

Rasa in Latin means 'slate'; western philosophers talk about a 'tabula rasa', an empty slate, that humans are born with, but fill up with their life-experiences. Rasa also means 'essence' in Sanskrit; was exploring if I could distill the essence of a tabla and surround it with a blues-flamenco sound I had been playing around with in the last few tracks. 

It all started with a dream involving sinusoidal waves and switching harmonies a few days back; I woke up, and ran to my laptop to compose this piece. The same dream also told me how to finish a certain mathematical model I was working on. But that's a different story.

That's me in the cover-art. From when we were visiting Hampi.

Tabla Rasa

There's this long, dreary road in San Francisco called Geary Boulevard that's enigmatic for many reasons. 

For one, my wife and I get to speak so many different languages in quick short stretches, Chinese for a bit, Spanish for another few blocks, Hindi next, all glued together with the thickest, most Californian English you can think of. Then there are the memories, of looking at the boulevard wide-eyed, while my spritely, 80-something granddad dashed ahead by a few blocks. 

The main refrain here is actually a tune that a busker was playing on the street while I was there in July this year. As with the other ear-worms, it stuck with me all these months, until I was able to get it out with this inspired re-telling.

(Picture courtesy: By Bhautik Joshi: goo.gl/InSqRL)

Geary Blues

A bit of a slow-paced seasonal beat for you to beat those holiday blues, as you head back to work in 2017! Thought it'd be interesting to explore how Auld Lang Syne and Jingle Bells (or Vive le vent, as they say in French) could do a jugalbandi together, like a mis-playing turntable in a Christmas or New Year party.

Cover-art: By Dreamy Pixel (http://dreamypixel.com/winter-cottage-at-night/) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Metamutator Presents: Christmas

Vive le Temps: Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot.

I’m much more than the sum of everything you know about me. I have secrets.

metamutator

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