The soundscape game

Argentinean DJ Andres Oddone, who is also a composer and sound designer, says he aims to make an album of Indian sounds that would link the country with the world’s soundscape

September 13, 2013 08:02 pm | Updated June 02, 2016 11:45 am IST

Argentine musician Andres Oddone

Argentine musician Andres Oddone

Andres Oddone cannot be hemmed in by specifics. Popular as a DJ, this Argentinean, who works out of Mexico City, is much more than the regular DJ. He is an experimenter of sounds, an innovative contemporary musician, one who restlessly attempts to break restrictions.

On his first ever visit to the State as part of his three-week residency with Goethe Institut, Bangalore, Andres is on a project where he is “looking for new ways of programming music, recording new sounds and collaborating with new artistes and their styles”.

“The aim is to bring out an album with Indian sounds. This might sound clichéd but what I’m looking out for is rhythms of the lives of people. From what I have heard there is a striking similarity of the sounds everywhere in the world. Like say the shout of the newspaper man or the street seller, his intonation, the rhythm strangely sounds the same anywhere. I’m trying to find a link in the soundscape,” says Andres who will perform and conduct workshops in Thiruvananthapuram.

“Kochi was a refreshing break,” says Andres. “If Bangalore, where we spent some days as part of the residency, is punctuated by the blaring of horns, in Kochi it was the soothing sound of the backwaters and birds.”

Collaborative work

Andres loves working with sound. Deejaying has been a step in his adventurous journey. He has is actively involved in producing, coordinating multi-media events and organising concerts in the areas of electronic, experimental and DJ music. “Since 2009 I have been working for a German company, Opium Effect creating soundscapes and music for audio-visual compositions. Simultaneously, I have produced for several German television stations.”

As producer, Andres has worked with some of the leading names in Latin American music. Jiony, is a young musician-producer who creates new electronic sounds. Andres has mixed and mastered his album Waiting for the Sun . Frikstailers, Chancha Via Circuito and Lhasa De Sela are three projects that Andres picks from the huge repertoire of his work. “Frikstailers, manned by Rafa Caivano and Lisandro Sona is pure dance energy, smart, shockingly fun and multi-rhythmic. I worked in one of their projects. Rio Arriba is an album by Chancha Via Circuito, with whom I worked with to bring new fans to native drum traditions, taking cumbia into uncharted territory. Lhasa was a powerful singer-songwriter with whom we did her debut album La Llorona.

As one who specialises in musical composition and sound design, Andres has created the original sound tracks for documentary films such as Alias Alejandro and Die Tränen meiner Mutter . He also collaborated with Rafael Caivano and Lisandro Sona for the original musical track for the film Clubbing . “By the time this film was released I had left Cordoba (Argentina). The film was a hit and the music too. My mother who saw the film called me and told me she was excited to see my name in the credits. I was glad. But I’m yet to see this film.”

For Andres, music is a game. There is a childlike enjoyment every time he sits in his studio at his sprawling home to create sound effects, metallic, electronic sounds, fusing them with the original track. “It is like a puzzle I’m trying to decipher. I put pieces of sounds together with different technical effects to create something new. I enjoy this game, which is important.”

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