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Talvin Singh
One of England’s most innovative sound artists, DJ/producer/tablatronic master Talvin Singh’s consistently challenging albums and live performances have been central to the continued rise of Indian-influenced dance music. A pivotal figure in Britain’s “Asian Underground” movement during the ’90s, he has pursued his own audio explorations while also enthusiastically promoting the work of other like-minded musicians and DJs.
The son of Indian parents who came to Britain in the ’60s - after fleeing the regime of Ugandan strongman Idi Amin - Talvin was born in ’70s London, and was inspired as a young boy to learn the precision beats of the tabla, which he began playing when he was 5. At 15 he went to India for further classical training as a student of Ustad Lakshman Singh. But on his return to England in the late ’80s, instead of embarking on a classical career, he found himself in demand working with such diverse musicians as Bjork, Courtney Pine, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sun Ra and the Indigo Girls.
In the mid-90s Singh founded Anokha, a club night based at London’s Blue Note, where he mixed up his own electronically-enhanced percussive experiments with Asian punk bands and DJs. His seminal ’97 compilation album Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground featured artists such as State of Bengal and A.R. Rahman, along with his own compositions, and introduced the rest of the world to what was going on in London.
His groundbreaking ’98 debut release OK, was recorded in Mumbai, Madras, Okinawa, New York and London, and featured contributions from Bill Laswell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ustad Sultan Khan and the Madras Philharmonic Orchestra. An astonishing marriage of traditional Indian sounds and cutting edge dance rhythms, it deservedly received strong reviews - and Talvin surprised just about everyone the following year by winning England’s coveted Mercury Music Prize for popular music..
In 2000 Singh joined fellow techno-tabla travellers Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu and Karsh Kale in Laswell’s adventurous beats‘n’bass project Tabla Beat Science. He then released the acclaimed Ha in ’01, followed later that same year with the remix compilation Back To Mine. Along the way he’s also produced or remixed Madonna, Morocco’s Master Musicians of Jajouka, Dub Syndicate, Blondie and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
A dedicated fusionist with both an uncanny ear for melody and an innate talent for complex rhythms, Talvin Singh always seems to be one step ahead of his electronic contemporaries.
"Perplexing, contemplative….and devastatingly beautiful" - TIME OUT
"Purist genius from a sonic global engineer" - ID
Official Talvin Singh web site http://www.talvinsingh.com/ |
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