An introduction to tech house music is like opening a new chapter of life. Not all melodious, not all soulful, not all rhythmic, not all free flowing and yet not cacophonous, Electronic Dance Music (EDM) allows one to stretch the limits of creativity. That's what Jalebee Cartel presented to listeners in the city recently.
They are the pied pipers to a generation of charmed kids who follow their musical compositions as if in a trance. Even hardcore purists who may reject their looped, ‘reverbed', delayed, tweaked, sound bytes seem to have their ears pricked up. The internationally acclaimed band, leaders in Underground music, had our teenagers and young adults jive and groove late into midnight , at Hotel Casino.
Psychedelic medley
The Delhi-based young masters of EDM, performed along with B.L.O.T (Basic Love Of Things) to a psychedelic medley of moving visuals, effected sound, resulting in stunning atmospherics. The scene was indeed electrifying!
Ash Roy, percussionist and vocalist of Jalebee Cartel, said that there were many ‘inspired youngsters' here. “The turnout has always been good. We have played to packed halls.”
High ratings
Ask him about their rising ratings internationally and in the country, despite their music being suspect (to the older generation) and Ash's response is quite startling: “Underground is not commercial, it's not popular. We don't force anybody to listen to us. People like our music because it is interactive.” Tech house, the genre that the young band produces and plays, debunks all the notions held about old world music.
No ethnic sounds
Ethnic sounds have always been employed by Indian bands to make a foray into the international scene but Jalebee Cartel has boldly done away with it. “We are just Indians making international music”, says Ash, who is Debashish Roy from Kolkata and a tabla player.
It was eight years ago that the band began attracting attention with their unidentifiable, new fangled sounds.
Basically the young experimentalists allowed for free, unrestrained innovations and tweaked sounds to come up with music that surprised the listeners. “We made it for fun and made it interactive,” recalls Roy and remembers people coming up to them and enquiring about the track. A flood of bookings followed which even surprised them. They were still an unnamed group of Arjun Vagale on the synthesizer, mixing music from his laptop, Ashvin Mani Sharma also on the synthesiser and G. Arjun, a bass player.
Forced to perform for gigs, the men had to give themselves a name.
Arjun doesn't like jalebis while the rest of them like it, so they called themselves, Jalebee Cartel. “It's a cool name,” says Ash with his still cooler tattoo of audio cables on his forearm.
Ash writes the lyrics and plays the percussions, ranging from African drums-the djembe to the desert beats on the darbuka. The tabla, of course, remains a mainstay and digital drums raise the tempo.
His voice and the drum beats are “effected” , looped, ‘reverbed', delayed, grunged, through the mixer, synthesiser via the laptop, all evolved to a newer, different scale, all strung together by G. Arjun's bassline.
It was in 1999, at the Disco Music Club competition, an international DJ competition, that the two Arjuns of the group met for the first time. Both had won the competition from Delhi and Kolkata.
It was an introduction and a friendship that flowered into tech house.
On the rise
A couple of years later when they played at Elevate in Delhi, where the likes of Anoushka Shankar and Medieval Pundits had played earlier, they performed as a band for the very first time. Their electronic act was noticed once again.
“We are all in our 30s, married men,” says Ash adding that the group allows for freelance activity and also come up with a four-piece act.
The group has over 150 single tracks released internationally and an album- One Point Nothing.
Their music began to be noticed by international artistes who invited them to go abroad. It was three years ago at a festival- C/O Pop in Cologne that a Goethe Institute representative, scouting for new age music noticed them and invited them over.
“We played at a three-day festival. “It was like being at Woodstock,” reminiscences Ash.
Earlier this year the group played at a fusion festival to a 20,000 audience in Berlin, the hub of EDM, where a Dutch fan told them that she had been following them for four years.
“It feels great to get recognition from common people.”
It's not noisy
Is being young obligatory to enjoy their music? “It is not noisy music; it is groovy, percussive…. You don't have to be young to listen to us.”
Their influences are Pink Floyd, Dépêche Mode, Metallica- Rock, House, Break Beat..
Having gained a foothold internationally, does Bollywood beckon them?
Ash smiles gently, “we are still babies in the international scene. We are not a pop band or a Bollywood act. We are basically like children with a lot of musical toys, having fun.”
And these cool dudes of music can be credited to having fired a generation that appreciates individualism in music.
Tech House is very popular in Europe. It is a subgenre of House music, originating as a bifurcation of R&B. Black artistes added speed to soul and made it more 'dancing' which is how Chicago or Detroit House came about. Tech House is built on that, explains Roy.
The gig was collaboration between Red Bull Academy, Hotel casino and Forum Entertainment.
