Greets… BBC Asian Network asked me to do a special mix for the Friction radio show hosted by Bobby Friction. It’s for a producer showcase called Reproduced. It was on today at 10:00 PM GMT (5:00 PM EST). They’ll also have the show archived on the Friction website if you want catch it later. Downloadable podcast available too (UK listeners only).
KAUSHIK - FRICTION REPRODUCED TRACKLIST - August 19 2008
Artist — Track
1. Brown Sounds - Panchgani
2. Kaushik - Song of the Valley
3. Karsh Kale - Manifest (Kaushik Ambient Remix)
4. Steve Spacek - Dollar (Kaushik Remix)
5. Temple of Sound - People’s Colony No. 1 (Kaushik Dub)
6. KidGusto feat. See-I - Fed Up (Kaushik & Rusty B. Remix)
7. Karsh Kale feat. MC Napoleon Solo - Manifest (Kaushik Alternate Remix)
8. AR Rahman feat. Sonu Nigam and Sunidhi Chauhan - Gulfisha (Kaushik Remix)
9. Outro/Credits
Thanks for listening!
Update: Just heard the Reproduced segment and had to share Bobby’s reaction. He was heavily medicated due to a neck injury of some sort. Here’s what he had to say after he heard my set:
“Wow that was like a meditation, it was like a dreamscape he managed to mold from his beats and music. We just shut up and closed our eyes and nodded our heads… If he treats women like how he treated that music in terms of having an eye for beauty and the right sort of vibe, he’s going to be a very lucky man.”
I think Bobby needs to hurt his neck more often! Thanks to BBC Asian Network, Bobby and Meera for the opportunity to do the mix.
Here’s a brand new remix I just finished up. It’s a breakbeat version of “Gulfisha” from the upcoming Bollywood production “Ada - A Way of Life.” It’s an A.R. Rahman composition — supposedly he’s one of the top 25 biggest selling artists in the world (based on sales of CDs and cassettes of his soundtracks)?? I believe it, I’m a huge fan of his work; the man is a genius.
Although the Seiji remix of Erykah Badu’s “Honey” has been circulating in blogland for a bit now, it might be new to you as it was to me. The Honey vocals (and some others) have been floating around for the last few months and I see remixes popping up regularly. The Seiji rework stands out — it’s a familiar break that I can’t recall, with a massive bassline. I picked this up from Diplo’sMad Decent blog. Anyways here it is once again.
Kicking things off on the new site, here’s a dubby remix I just did with Rusty B. (of All Good Funk Alliance) of KidGusto’s “Fed Up.” Taken from the “KG Originals” release on KidGusto’s own True Grooves label, the track features vocals from Rootz and Zeebo of DC’s roots reggae crew See-I, who’ve also provided vocal flavors on Thievery Corporation albums and live shows.
Rusty took a dubbed out approach to the remix with loads of effects over his Funk Weapons style beats, and I added in bass, keyboard and guitar bits. Frank Cueto from AGFA mastered the remix for added punch. This is a sneak preview of the official release which hopefully should be out on 12″ vinyl later this year.
It was time for some housekeeping with my old websites. The Web has changed a lot in the last 2-3 years and it was time for an update. So, thanks to Wordpress and various plug-ins, I’m getting ready to launch Music is Variable.
I definitely didn’t do this alone — my coding skills are pretty limited so I depended on easy-to-use tools that I strongly recommend. They include:
I like doing remixes. I especially like remix contests, although I have no interest in entering them to win a t-shirt or free software. Instead, remix contests are a great way to get raw working material to inspire me. Using just the vocal track, I like to recreate the entire song into something new. The act of reinventing and reimagining someone else’s creation is interesting. It gives me a chance to experiment with different styles, and to get to know my production tools better. It also keeps my musical skills sharp, especially after long quiet periods when I don’t have much time to work on music.
Thinking about all this leads to this attempt to define my philosophy on remixes. In part this is also due to the time I’m spending working on a couple of remixes of Karsh Kale’s “Manifest.” I’ve been wondering why I do remixes, and this is an attempt to define my approach.
My remix of Steve Spacek’s “Dollar” is in rotation on Radio Nova 99.3 in Oslo, Norway. Radio Nova is Norway’s most popular college radio station.
Thanks to the “Snadder” show for featuring the remix. Full playlist below.
1. Bilal – Hands Of Time (Interscope)
2. Torun Eriksen – Way To Go (Jazzland/Sonet/Universal)
3. Goapele – Catch 22 (Skyblaze/Columbia)
4. Musiq – Onenight (Def Soul)
5. Ghostface feat Ne-Yo – Back Like That
6. Madlib – Friends (Foes) (Stones Throw/VME)
7. Remy Ma feat Big Pun – Thug Love (SRC/Universal)
8. Al Green – Love And Happiness (Hi)
9. Prince - Satisfied (NPG/Universal)
10. Prince – Little Red Corvette (Warner)
11. Prince – Lolita (NPG/Universal) 12. Steve Spacek – Dollar (Kaushik Remix) (white label)
13. Nate James – The Message (One Two)
14. Mink DeVille – Help Me To Make It (Power Of A Woman’s Love) (Atlantic)
It appears that the master himself has resurfaced (online, at least). A post on Bobby Friction and Nihal’s messageboard pointed to Talvin Singh’s new website — it’s kind of a pain to navigate, but there is mention of a new studio album in the works titled “AN” for release in the near future. Let’s see what the innovator has in store for us…
My remix of Steve Spacek’s “Dollar” was featured in the February 17 show of Friday Night Sessions on KUSF 90.3 in San Francisco. The show is hosted by Andrew Jervis, head of the mighty Ubiquity Records.
FEBRUARY 17, 2006
Hosted by: Andrew Jervis (Ubiquity)
Featuring Special Guest Mix by Shawn Lee
Masa Collective - Love is Everywhere (Especial)
Ray Barretto - Acid (Fania)
3 na Massa - Thalma (cd-r)
Shawn Lee - Gerrard Street (Ubiquity) Steve Spacek - Dollar (Kaushik remix) (CD-r)
Nino Moschella - Better Off (Ubiquity)
Shawn J Period - The Come Back (Rude)
Dudley Perkins - Title Unknown (Stones Throw)
Dena Deadly - 1608 (cd-r)
Bluemind - Stay Alive (cd-r)
Jazztronik - Cannibal Rock (Especial)
Incognito - Show Me Love (Yam Who mix) (Dome)
Radio City - Voices (Ubiquity)
MJ - Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (AJ remix) (Rebtuz)
Greetings to all. Another update. And oh, I just figured out how to add an RSS feed in case you want subscribe to this blog — thanks to Manish at Sepia Mutiny for helping out.
My remix of “Dollar” received 4 out of 5 stars in the “Future Classics” section of Eastern Eye UK. Eastern Eye is the UK’s most popular and best-known Asian newspaper, with more than 72,000 readers. The review is by Sharnita Athwal of the Shaanti UK club collective, who is also the head of the Shaanti Play record label. Check out their latest release “Fused Rocking Beats Vol. 1.”
I must have listened to this album nonstop for a whole year — my senior year of high school. Another bootleg cassette purchase from my favorite Blok M shopping district in Jakarta. Every night, after arguing with my sister about whose turn it was on our old school Sony Walkman, I’d crank Power Corruption & Lies and lie in bed, the lights turned out, drifting into sleep. Because the Walkman had an auto-reverse feature, I’d sometimes listen to the album on an endless loop only to find the batteries had died by the time I woke up to get ready for school.
The cassette started with Blue Monday which is actually the fifth track on the legit album, but I didn’t know or care. The whole album struck a chord with me — bad musical pun — it wallowed in a grey, hazy cloud of electronic beats and synths, punctuated by heartfelt lyrics, anchored by Peter Hook’s bass lines. It reminded me of rays of sunlight struggling to penetrate dark clouds after a storm… or something. Full of hope but also weary of the world, as only a teenager understands.
Without PC&L I think I never would have explored dance music, remixes or club culture. It led me backwards in time to Joy Division and the whole 24 hour party people scene that was 1980s Manchester. This was and remains a hugely influential work.
Not quite the right Kaushik… (Indian director Satish Kaushik)
It’s been some time since I’ve posted here. Work keeps things hectic, not to mention recent trips to Las Vegas, Colonial Williamsburg, and Delaware. The result is, precious little time for creative endeavors and distractions.
Related to that, yesterday I got this note from someone on a music-related message board I spend too much time on:
mr. kaushik, hope all is well. i saw a post of yours and figured i might as well introduce myself. i’ve never toured before, so i don’t know how easy it is to remember random people from city to city, but i saw fourtet, yourself, and others play at the grog shop in cleveland this past summer. i was the gangly lookin’ dood that came up to you and asked for the title of the song you played that madlib had sampled for the latest quasimoto. it was the north carolina joint.
anyhow, maybe you can place the face with the name now. if not, i will see you around on teh [music-related messageboard mentioned above].
Of course I wouldn’t turn down a gig with Fourtet or anyone in the Stones Throw crew, but I don’t know them and they sure don’t know me. Interestingly, this is the 2nd time that someone has mistaken me for Koushik. I expect this is going to happen with increasing frequency when my music is finally ready for release.
So just for the record, I am not Koushik. I might be down for a Kaushik vs. Koushik collabo though; that would be fun. Here’s my reply to that message I got:
Hey (name), thanks for the pm but I think you might be looking for Koushik
. We have the same name but I spell mine differently — not to mention my music’s of a different style…
Continuing with my occasional ramblings on albums that I love… Manu Dibango’sGone Clear was the first reggae album I heard. Now that in itself is an odd statement: Manu and reggae? He’s known as the soul makossa man, the jazz saxophonist, original purveyor of African-style jazz and funk. But Manu and reggae?
Well a couple of things explain the reggae connection. For one, most of the tracks have a reggae vibe to them over Manu’s trademark melodic sax licks. But digging a bit more, there are more reggae connections to this incredibly funky, breezy and summery album. It was released on Mango, the now-defunct reggae label. It was also recorded in Jamaica around 1979 when Bob Marley was still alive. Finally, it was Manu’s studio collabo with the reggae drum-and-bass kingpins Sly & Robbie aka the Riddim Twins. S&R featured on many of Bob Marley’s albums and were the heart of his live band for a long time. Their rhythmic pulse combined with Manu’s soulful sax makes this is a truly funky album that’s withstodd the test of time.
I came across Gone Clear in an uncle’s record collection while visiting Singapore. I think I only listened to it because it had a cool cover — who the hell was Manu anyway? I copied it onto a cassette and forgot about it — then listened it to some time later, and I was hooked. It was probably that damn funky little number “Goro City” that got me — to this day I don’t know what the singers are saying, or what the song is about, but I love that song. I have thoughts about doing a cover version of the tune some day… with all due respect to MD.
I was wondering today if any other musician/producer types spend time on the Internet, and what they do online. Checking out a forum for music gear heads, I noticed a familiar name — Montreal-based Sixtoo, on the NinjaTune label, has 173 posts on random topics. Not only is he a forum regular, he also uses Blogger like everyone else to infrequently write about his upcoming record, DJ gigs, etc.
Suddenly I feel vindicated and in good company — like I did the other day when I saw Bjork, MF Doom, Nobody and other assorted folks have their own MySpace music sites. Now, back to my regular music geek forums. Or is it fora?
Sharaab (Saurabh Bose), my comrade-in-arms in the indie music struggle, just wrapped up his new album Evolution and its due out any day now. I’ve heard three or four tracks already — some are streaming on his website — and he’s stepped up his game significantly. His sound has evolved from the Asian electronic sound collage of his previous album Infusion. As the Pro Tools whiz says on his website — and I’ve noticed in his tracks — he’s using English lyrics and there’s more of a songwriting approach that’s obvious in the new material. Also I really like how he’s added electric and acoustic guitars to the mix to create a full sound.
I’ve worked with Sharaab previously and you can check out my remix of his “Bidrohi” track right here — it’s a full mp3 download. I just noticed from an article on Sharaab’s site that a local DC blogger and Sepia Mutiny contributor — no names revealed here! — noted in his interview with Sharaab that my remix was done by “an up-and-coming DJ Kaushik Banerjee.” Hmm, I think he meant Mukerjee, not Banerjee. But it’s all good, folks, I’ll take whatever publicity I can get.
Evolution will open up new avenues for Sharaab, mark my words. His take on progressive Asian electronic music is unique — some of his songs remind me of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails — a dark electro feeling layered with guitar heaviness.
Check out his website, sign up for his mailing list, go see him live if he comes through your town — and most importantly please SUPPORT independent music by buying CDs and/or downloads and telling every one you know. Sharaab is doing all this on his own without label support or distribution. I wish him all the best in getting the exposure and audience he deserves. Go Sharaab!
I remember feeling a little disturbed the first time I saw the cover of Talking Heads 1980 release Remain in Light. With the red pixellated face paint covering David, Jerry, Chris and Tina’s faces, and the upside down A’s in the band’s name, the album seemed to be commenting on so many things: technological breakdown, randomness and chaos in the world, the primitive/modern dichotomy of contemporary life…
I didn’t have the legit album, but a bootleg cassette version from a small shop in Jakarta’s Blok M area. One of the many things these bootleggers did that annoyed me was to change the track order of the album on the cassette — I never figured out why this was done, maybe it was to squeeze in as many songs as possible on each 45 minute side of the cassette. As a result, the first song on my cassette version was “Crosseyed and Painless”, but the actual first song on the album was “Born Under Punches.”
This album was a revelation — it was the first Heads album I had heard and it hit me right in the gut. I heard this before 77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, and Fear of Music. I’d have to say Remain in Light opened up all kinds of worlds for me — I immediately bought all their previous albums, including the live album recorded in someone’s living room (!).
It was the first time I’d heard about Brian Eno, which led me to explore his solo albums and collabos with Robert Fripp. (And from Fripp I moved on to King Crimson.) On this album I heard the guitar genius of Adrian Belew with his bizarre electronic-sounding blips and bloops. And then there was the bubbling keyboard funk of Bernie Worrell which opened up the whole Parliament/Funkadelic experience. The fact that this album brought in so many crazily varied strands of music still amazes me today.
Overall the experience of listening to Remain in Light was like waking up on a different planet where the ancient and futuristic collide, and organized sonic mayhem ensues. With a heavy African vibe — talking drums, call/response chanting — layered in thick funk, the album sounds like four somewhat geeky white band members (with Eno as the mastermind) channeled Mother Africa into the mixing board to coax out the most otherworldly rhythms and melodies heard to date.
The other big thing about this album was the teaming of David Byrne and Brian Eno — some people might claim they unfairly dominated the making of the album and alienated the rest of the Heads. Notwithstanding all that, Byrne/Eno went on to make the brilliant My Life in the Bush of Ghosts which was like Remain in Light meets Coldcut — but more on this later.
In the meantime, hear for yourself what I’ve been babbling about, courtesy of Amazon.
I realized recently that I don’t listen to too much new music nowadays. I attribute this to two things. One, I haven’t been making much of an effort to seek out new stuff. Two, when I’m working on my own music I tend to block out other music. It’s natural to have your sound be a reflection of your influences — some might say there’s nothing wrong with wearing your influences prominently on your musical sleeve. But I find the best way for me to capture the sounds I hear in my head, is to filter out other music and concentrate on my own thing.
So, here’s the point of this post. Thinking about all this, I began to think about my musical influences. There are certain albums that are part of my musical DNA, and are so ingrained in my head (and my memories) that I thought I should catalog them and dissect what makes them so important to me.
So here we have the first installment. I’m thinking of making this a recurring feature on this blog. I’d love to hear your stories on any of the albums I talk about here — did they have an impact on you? When, and why?
First one up is Ghost in the Machine by The Police. I was already a huge Police fan before this came out in the early 80s. The one day, at home in suburban Chicago, I heard a familiar voice on the radio accompanied by a syncopated reggae flavored synth riff, a funky ass bass line, and crisp drums. “Where does the answer lie… living from day to day… is it something we can buy… there must be another way…” Damn, was that the Police?! I’d just heard “Spirits in the Material World” and I was hooked.
Back then, I had precious little money from my allowance to buy records. Luckily though, my father got me a bootleg cassette version of the album from Jakarta, Indonesia where he was going on a regular basis for business. (Pirated music was a huge thing in Indonesia at the time.) While waiting for my precious album though, I listened feverishly to the radio — Sting, Andy and Stewart followed up “Spirits” with “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”, “Invisible Sun”, “Secret Journey” and they made a huge impact on my impressionable young mind.
There’s something about this album that’s pure genius — it has a dark and somewhat sombre tone througout, punctuated by moments of pop brilliance. It’s political, thoughtful, introspective, and sometimes disturbing. It’s also the first album where the Police used a horn section on several songs. I never figured out what those LED patterns on the album cover meant, but it added to the album’s mystique. They look like digital representations of the three members of the group.
All in all, this album was and remains a huge influence… it’s a classic.
Gwen in a pinkish mood dreaming about all those digital dineros she’s racking up…
I just read that Gwen Stefani’s overplayed, overexposed song “Hollaback Girl” achieved a milestone of sorts — 1 million digital downloads (full story). That’s pretty damn impressive and it’s a first of its kind.
But the really interesting fact is that the song also had 1 million downloads into mobile phones. That’s truly mind-boggling. It basically confirms that the music revolution is definitely being digitized and downloaded en masse.
Of course the indie, unknown artiste side of me likes to quantify what this all means in monetary terms. In a typical digital distribution arrangement, I might get 91% of the sale price of a track downloaded from iTunes or a similar service. (The distributor takes a 9% cut.) I’m not sure if Gwen also gets 91% — I think not — but she’s making beaucoup bucks from other places, so this is probably just a drop in the bucket for her anyway.
As an indie musician though, if I had 1 million song downloads *and* 1 million downloads to mobile devices, assuming each download (typically) costs 99 cents, we are talking major money, folks.
2 million downloads * $0.99 * 0.91 = $1.8 million to the artist
Damn. So all I need is to have a #1 single, total media saturation, distribution deals galore, and I become a millionaire.
I wish it were that simple. But that’s the power of digital distro, in theory.
My remix of Steve Spacek’s “Dollar” was featured in the February 17 show of 
