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Indo-British musician on electronic music in India
Highlights
Bollywood music might be the favourite of numerous young Indians, but Prash Mistry, founder of British band Engine-Earz Experiment who is of Indian origin
Bollywood music might be the favourite of numerous young Indians, but Prash Mistry, founder of British band Engine-Earz Experiment who is of Indian origin, says electronic music is making a place for itself in the country.
The band, which also consists of Data (frontman), Kabir Kainth (tabla-percussion-triggers), James Billinge (drums), Tom Hollings (guitar) and VJ Splatty (live visuals), is currently on a multi-city tour of India.
Conceptualised by LIVE Viacom18, the five-city gig, which will conclude in Bangalore Saturday, will witness performances by Engine-Earz Experiment and DJ ASA.
Having performed earlier in India, Mistry believes the genre has grown in the country.
"Being an Indian myself, I've been feeling a draw to India for a number of years. This is my third tour in India and the electronic music is alive and growing by leaps and bounds!
"It's a very exciting time and it's great to be back again for LIVE Viacom18's VDOT EMERGE," Mistry told IANS in an email interaction.
Mistry, whose great grandfather's generation moved from Gujarat to East Africa, was raised in England and is grateful for the fact the move immersed him in the musical culture he grew up in. But he is also influenced by Indian musicians.
"Yes for sure (influenced by Indian musician), mainly classical Indian music as well as Sufi Qawwali music. There are also a number of the British Asian underground who have been doing awesome music for a very long time like Shiva Soundsystem, Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney," said the multi-instrumentalist.
He also enjoys working with Indian artists.
"For the VDOT Emerge tour, we collaborated with Randolph aka Func from Shaa'ir + Func... There are many more artists I would like to work alongside with in the future including B.L.O.T., more music with Monica Dogra, Sandunes and Nucleya," he said.
What he likes about performing with other artists is that he gets to create something special with them.
"I wouldn't say it's essential to work with other artists. However, there definitely is something very special about creating sounds as a team and combining talent and musical backgrounds to create something spontaneous," said Mistry, also a disc jockey.
"DJing is quite a personal thing, so I prefer to do that by myself," he said.
The musician formed the band in 2009 and since then, it's been quite an adventure.
"I wrote a song called 'Kaliyuga' as a result of some political events in the West and it seemed to resonate with a number of people. BBC Radio 1 then invited us to perform an exclusive Maida Vale session - I put together the band for that.
"These sessions were shared all over the world and performed across the whole BBC network. The rest has been an adventure ever since," he said.
He believes that along with talented bandmates, the mix of live instruments and electronics makes their shows different from others.
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