At the heart of Bengaluru producer and DJ Oceantied’s first release, Tribes, lies groove: sometimes manic, at other times restrained, but almost always free. Just for good measure, song number three on the four-track EP is even called ‘Groove N Move’. It features a chopped-up vocal sample repeating the two words, among others, with a hypnotic intensity.
Each passing bar of the song reinstates that spirit of rhythmic movement. DJ Oceantied’s EP falls loosely under the bass music space, very much dancefloor-friendly.
For his latest effort, 23-year-old Ketan Bahirat has drawn from different sounds, including footwork, jungle, and trap music, but he resists any clear classification of the music. Tribes is his attempt at crafting a signature sound: an interpretation of the different kinds of music he’s heard and an accumulation of the production techniques he’s learnt.
The EP has been written over a period of two years, when Oceantied became a proper ‘project’.
“These songs have been changing over time, based on new learnings and experiences,” says Bahirat. “I’ve worked on the arrangement a lot, changed it around a bunch of times, messing with the overall production.” He’s been touring heavily, and meticulously workshopping material of the album at gigs. “I like testing out a lot of my tracks when I play my DJ sets; it helps me gauge what works on the dance floor and what doesn’t.”
Bahirat, who has Mumbai-based artist management and booking agency Krunk representing him, has had a fruitful year. He’s all set to perform at the Indian inaugural edition of the prestigious Boiler Room series, an online broadcast platform. “I’ve always loved [Boiler Room] as a concept;they push a lot of underground acts,” he says. “It’s also a very globally scaled event; it’s screened online and they have a massive following worldwide.”
Bahirat is still basking in the afterglow of a two-week residency in Montreal as part of the Red Bull Music Academy, which took place in late September. Most of his time was spent in a common building reserved for the academy, with 10 studio rooms, a lecture hall, and a “café/lounge-type place”. But he describes his time there as “mind-expanding”, “super”, and a “life-changing experience”. He says, “It’s a very community-driven experience: the artistes, the curators, the RBMA team, everyone’s there in the building.” Bahirat says the residency was open-ended, where everyone could figure out how they wanted to approach their time there, from collaborations to interacting with well-known artistes and producers.
There’s a clear upward trajectory ever since he began to approach Oceantied with a certain degree of seriousness. The quality of the music plays a major role in that, and Bahirat is trying his darnedest to not be part of the herd in the electronic music industry. “I’m not trying to do what everyone else is,” he says. “It’s very easy to get caught up in that — a lot of people limit themselves to ‘genres’ or ‘sounds’ or ‘BPMs’ or whatever. I haven’t done that at all.”
But beyond that, Bahirat stresses on the need to engage with the peripherals of the music industry.
“If musicians don’t promote what they do, then they’re not going to be heard,” he says. “I’m super interested in the music business as well... just the way the industry functions.” It’s a subject full-time musicians are often reluctant to broach. On the other hand, Bahirat, remains very much self-aware and open to exploring those elements wholeheartedly.
He’s of the opinion that if musicians want to sell their music, involvement is key. “Otherwise, all you become is a bitchy loner,” he says. “There’s no point complaining about how no one is listening to your music when you’re not even trying to sell it.” By his own admission, Bahirat is a person who wants to express his feelings. “But I also want to show those feelings to other people.
All musicians tend to work on their own thing, and you end up showing just the things you connect with, or you want the audience to connect with.”
In addition to the launch of his EP and a spate of gigs lined up, Bahirat — who’s been playing only DJ sets until now — wants to get a live set going. “It would probably be a hybrid of that; ambient sections, build-up sections, leading to something that’s more dancefloor-oriented,” he says. He reveals he wants to put out something a little longer by next year maybe. Bahirat also plays the guitar for Bengaluru-based post-rock band Until We Last. Their last effort was the EP Earthgazing in 2014, and there are plans to work on new material. So there’s plenty to look forward to.
The author is a freelance writer
Oceantied will perform at the Boiler Room series today at 9 p.m.
