Mayur Narvekar
by Mister Mime
10th July 2021
Few artists can claim to be truly unique and original, and Indian electronic musician Mayur Narvekar is definitely among them. The maverick producer, who is known as the ‘don of Indian bass music’ and the ‘kingpin of Indian neuro’, is still going strong with his two-decade-plus long career. He has worked under different aliases like ‘Bandish Projekt’ and ‘Mosillator’ and has been a key figure involved in radically changing the landscape of electronic music in India.
With his work in the brand new Amazon Prime Video show ‘Sherni' and a plethora of projects in various creative situations under his belt over the past years, it is evident that he regularly pushes the envelope of musicality, invents new sub-genres (Gujrati-electro-folk, neuro-bhajan-bass) and has time and again shown his individuality, versatility and artistic vision.
His latest EP ‘Spectrum’ that released recently on the esteemed 4NC¥ label under his purely electronic avatar ‘Mosillator’, naturally happens to be some of the most intense and conceptually intricate bass music out there today.
MM: Can you tell us how the aliases "Mosillator" & "Bandish Projekt" came to be? & how it is different from "Bandish Projekt"?
MN: "Mosillator" basically comes from the word "oscillator" & I just added an 'M' (for Mayur). I then googled it & there was no artist by the name, so I decided to keep it.
"Bandish Projekt"; we were on a flight back in '97 to Hyderabad if I remember correctly, & we were thinking about what to name our project. "Bandish" in a classical sense means "Composition" & refers to the classical side of the project. The "Projekt" part depicts the electronica & experimental vibe to it.
As for the difference between the two projects, it's a little tricky to answer for me. Being Indian & having growing up in a family with musicians, the Bandish Projekt sound comes quite naturally to me.
My base is classical Tabla, & I was majorly into classical music when I was in college. I used to be a proper student of the art form. I would go for all these tabla competitions & my Guru would tell me that I had to attend these & perform well. So, for about 20 years, I was fully immersed in this with at least 8 hours of practice a day.
Image Courtesy: Swaraj Sriwastav
MN: Suddenly, in '96/97', I was exposed to Drum & Bass music in college through some CDs we got of what we called 'World Music' back then. On these CDs was the music of Talvin Singh from the UK, Nitin Sawhney & many others. Talvin Singh had similar roots to where I was coming from. It was amazing to watch somebody play such music on a global platform, where the Tabla is playing & something is happening around it, which I had never heard before. I was quite amazed & began to get curious about it. I knew what was being played on the Tabla, but I couldn't fathom what was happening around it. I had never heard anything like this. I dug deeper into this new thing, finding out what this music was called & what it was about. Back then, there was no Google, so you just had to ask people. Once I discovered that this was called 'Drum & Bass', I listened to Drum & Bass artists like Goldie, DJ Hype, DJ SS & Aphrodite. As we got hold of more CDs, we got more into that music & that's how Drum & Bass became my first love. Eventually, I began to make Drum & Bass in Bandish Projekt & fuse it with Classical & Folk music.
Now, for 'Mosillator', in the later part of 2010, I figured that I should start another alias for myself, do just Drum & Bass, & remain anonymous. For the first 3 years, nobody knew I was behind that project. Even in, say, 2011, the sounds I was making were entirely new in the scene. The first album I did as Mosillator was with Pravy Prav, who is the brother of PAV4N. Prav was in Mumbai at the time, & we would just meet up in the evenings & make beats. So in about 6 months, the first Mosillator album, "Filter Forest" came about.
That's how the Mosillator thing happened. I wanted to have a different alias because I wanted to give a distinct identity to that music.
I wear different hats at different times when I'm working. If I'm working on a film or documentary project, I primarily work under my own name, which has nothing to do with either 'Bandish Projekt' or 'Mosillator'.
So, to summarize it all, Bandish Project is the one with the Indian sound, & Mosillator is strictly electronic. That's why I wear the headpiece when I perform as Mosillator.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MM: Can you tell us about the ‘Spectrum’ album artwork & how did you find it to be a good fit for this EP?
MN: PAV4N had a few artists in mind, so I checked out their work & found a particular piece by "Meuseum" to be interesting. Later, I realized that it was the first-ever artwork that he made, which was cool.
As for its relationship with the music, the uniformity & arrangement of the colours & shapes depicted the frequency spectrum to me. Also, as a producer, I like to have the spectral graph of my tracks. I don't like harsh cuts in the visual representation of the tracks when they are laid out. In this case, I'm referring to all the four tracks; when placed together & listened to one after another, they would have a consistent sound level. Hence, the white part of the artwork could connect with the uniformity of the sound & the sonic journey of the EP from start to finish. That's how I was looking at the artwork in relation to my music.
MM: Regarding track names, you said they "are true to its name & express the emotions to the way they sound". Can you elaborate on these actions/conditions of 'sprinting', 'rolling', 'paining' & 'pressure', their corresponding emotions, & how they relate to the sound & (DNB/Neurofunk) genre in general?
MN: I see a visual representation of the music even before I make it. If I make a beat, a bassline & a loop, I can already see what it will become when complete. Sometimes it may turn into something else, but most of the time, I know how it's going to sound when finished.
The track "It's Paining", for example, starts off with this filter modulating sound which kind of grows on you, till the point that it begins to get annoying. I find this analogous to the sensation of pain in general & that's the expression of the track. The video for the track is in a similar frame of expression. There is a contemporary/freestyle dancer who moves with the track. His performance exhibits this very fact: that the more effortless the dance looks, the more pain goes into it. The most difficult moves are executed so that they appear simple & effortless to do. The bottom line is that it is difficult for an artist to showcase their fluency & expression without show the pain behind it.
MN: I also related that to myself & the kind of music I make, so, there are several perspectives to it. There is a lot of pain & struggle that you go through behind the scenes as an artist, & you may not have an outward expression to show for it. Most music is an expression of what the artists feel. I may not be able to tell you what I feel, but if I play you my track, you might get it...or you may not. It's as simple as that.
We follow artists & creatives for their work. You don't know them personally, but their art connects with you on a personal level.
For "Sprinting", I discussed a music video with PAV4N and the concept of the video was ”a runner practising for his races”. If you listen to the track with this in mind, you will visualize “a sprinter starting his race, getting set & adjusting his footing on the blocks; & as soon as the beat starts, he starts running; little bits of the ground flying up in the air, stuff like that.
I didn't think that much about "Rolling", but the rolling bassline in the track gives the name to it.
In "Pressure", the gaps in the track appear in a very choppy fashion & these spaces denote this 'pressure' to me. I imagine I'm working in a space, & a third party comes into that space, or else I've been displaced & put into a different space, where I perhaps don't want to be. Or, in another sense, I'm working on a track, & then midway through it, I have to do something else that is necessary for me. So I have to leave my track in between. This puts pressure on me, being in a place that I may not want to be, but having to do so in an obligatory sense or because my life & circumstances demand it from me.
Image Courtesy: Vijit Gupta
MM: Are there any stories you would like to share behind the making of the tracks/EP?
MN: The EP was pretty much done a year ago, during the first lockdown. The ideas & arrangements were all there, but they were not 100% finished tracks. I thought about releasing them as singles, which would also probably get me more mileage out of them. Because often what happens is that you finish 3 tracks, but the 4th one doesn't finish, & you need to stall those other 3 tracks as well.
I am the kind of producer who doesn't give up on music. Some people tell me that I should go on holiday & then continue working on my unfinished tracks when I get back. But I can't do that. I would spend several hours more on them to get them done. & that habit & mentality come from my tabla practice... where I was told that I needed to practice a particular beat for 12 hours instead of 8 for it to sound good. So, I belong to that school of thought that if I put in more time, effort & focus, I will get the desired output.
People have their own ways of doing things. Someone may take a smoke break & get an idea when they return to their production. For me, it doesn't work that way. I am a very laser-focused guy, & I will stick a thing till I get it done, whatever it may take. So that's how I finished the EP.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MM: You are known as the 'Don of Indian Bass Music' & the 'Kingpin of Indian Neuro', among other things. Can you tell us about your musical background & how your journey into music began?
MN: I have a musical family background. My father is a musician, & so is my uncle. When I was 2-3 years old, they figured out that I am musically inclined. My uncle suggested to my father that I should start learning Tabla. So, I began taking tabla lessons at a very young age and if they had not done this, I would not be who I am today. I believe that it's one of the most important things for me to acknowledge in my life. & for every other musician as well. Art would die out in a traditional sense if it were not nurtured from a young age. While I may have been doing 8+ hours of practice, my family was doing just as many hours of work, if not more, to facilitate & nurture me on this path. When I was slightly older, my father would drop me at my teacher's house, which was at least 15kms away, & get me back home regularly. Sometimes my mother would come to pick me up from there as well. & they had their own jobs & were also managing our household. So it's highly commendable what they did for me. Today, being a father with a two & a half-year-old kid, I realize how much that means on an even larger scale. I also remember these things more clearly as I learn more about parenthood.
I grew up listening to a lot of classical music & ghazals. My father himself was a tabla & dholak player, & when I used to practice, my father would himself sit beside me for hours & observe me doing so. Every once in a while, he would tell me things like, "Woh 'Na' theek se nahi baj raha hai...phir se bajaao" It was the same case with my uncle as well, who would say, "Woh 'tirekita' acche se nahi aa raha hai...dobara karna" They had heard the best of tabla players and they wanted me to achieve that level of proficiency. Then, when I got exposed to electronic music, all these things resonated in that new sphere.
In fact, before I became an electronic producer, I was a drummer in a jazz-funk band for a short time. I didn't even know how to play the drums, so I learned while playing in the band. This period was very good for me to learn how 'funk' works. These experiences & parts of my journey led me to come up with something new & unique, which was my own kind of sound.
Image Courtesy: Himon Mukherjee
MM: How did you first get into Electronic Music Production?
MN: In 1998, a friend of mine called Tarun, aka 'Boom Baba', who is really big in the trance scene, gave me a copy of a software called REASON. Before that, we used to work on Adobe Audition (which was called 'Cool Edit Pro' back in the day) which I still use sometimes, even today. Once I got my hands on REASON, to be honest, at first, I just wondered what the hell this software was about. It seemed out of this world to me; it was literally a virtual studio, where you could see virtual cables on your screen! I was very intimidated by it & thought it was out of my league. You couldn't even look at the entire software in one glance. You had to scroll down to see it in its entirety! Besides, the computers we had back then were barely able to handle this software. Neither my friend Tarun nor I knew how to use it. A friend of his from London had given him the software, saying that this was what everyone was using to make music at the time. Though it was a bit of a nightmare, we tried & tried, & in a couple of years of playing around with it, we managed to figure out how it worked. It was all trial & error back then. There was no YOUTUBE to watch tutorials & that's how we got into production. So from that time, till about 2004, I was just using REASON as a primary software. During that period, NUENDO, CUBASE & all those DAWs emerged. Still, since I had been introduced to REASON as my first software, I didn't want to change it just because newer ones were coming out. That would mean having to relearn all of it again, as the platforms were all so different from each other.
In 2004, we were introduced to ABLETON, & that's what I've stuck with as of today. From about 2004-2006, I was using REASON rewired into ABLETON, as I didn't want to let go of it. However, in those 2 years, I managed to learn the software inside out, & I realized that everything possible or even not could be done in ABLETON. I don't think there is any software out there like it. It's fascinating the way that the software has been made.
In 2016, I was called to talk at the Ableton Loop Festival in Berlin & showcase my music-making process. I've also done a couple of other workshops for them in the UK. I have a good relationship with them & give them my feedback & experience using the software whenever possible. Sometimes things get very technical. I'm not a tech geek as such. I believe that whatever be the technology you have unless you have the idea in your mind, it will never come out through the tech. Often we get everything else that we want but tend to forget about the music itself. I don't want to listen to technology; I want to listen to music. The soul moves through emotion, & without that, it's all just robotic sounds. On the other hand, it's absolutely not true that electronic music cannot have a soul.
In 2009, I started teaching Ableton when there were no online courses available, & I still do, very sparingly. I used to do 2-day workshops for about 10-20 people, for 6-7 hours a day. I have taught Ableton to people who have never switched on a computer in their lives, who managed to create their own tracks in those 2 days. My thoughts were if one could make a tune in 2 days from scratch, imagine what you could accomplish in 2 years. These days, apart from the pandemic situation, I've also been busy with my projects & my little one, so I don't get much time to do this. I don't like to do something unless I can do full justice to it. I'm not a certified trainer, but I have my own method & perspective of teaching music production. I come from the school of trial & error, & that's how I teach my students. If, by chance, tomorrow there is no Google or Youtube, they will still make music.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MM: I think your music is truly one of a kind & often groundbreaking! What are some of the tools, techniques, plugins, instruments, workflows, etc., that you use to get your signature sound? Anything that you would care to share that you believe is unique to your production process.
MN: With Mosillator, it is much more formulated than Bandish Projekt, which has many elements in it. Mosillator is mostly dance-based music, so there isn't as much variation in the arrangement unless I choose to create a track that is different. Bandish Projekt has a much broader musical perspective. My process depends on who I am collaborating or working with if that is the case, & their strong points. I always work around the collaborator or featured artist.
One of the things I learnt about arrangement from Viveick Rajgopalan is that arrangement comes from your mind, whereas music comes from your heart. It is essential to figure out which part will sound good after which part, & how to build up to a peak & then return to the original idea or motif of the track. Like in the case of Panduranga, to go from the Aalaap into the body of the song while keeping that energy, then, to take the track to its peak through the first & second drops. After that, I composed the flute section to lead back into the original idea of the track & onwards into the 'Antara'. Furthermore, all the sound design & little fx in the track should complement each other, as well as enhance the main melody.
As far as equipment goes, I have minimal gear. I just use my computer & a Midi keyboard, & that's pretty much all. I'm totally in the box. I use the same plugins & gadgets which everyone uses: Serum, Vital, PhasePlant; I use a lot of Kontakt for melodic stuff, Reaktor for sound design. It's about HOW I use these. Like I said, if the picture isn't clear enough in your head, it doesn't matter what instruments & plugins you have.
This is the very thing that I teach in my BeatFaktory classes. Going even further into this concept, whatever I teach you will also not make as much of a difference as HOW & WHAT you think & figure out for yourself. So, channel the music into your brain before you pull up some 50-odd plugins on your screen.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MN: I was asked this question by Dennis Desantis, who wrote the manual for Ableton: "What comes first to you when you sit to make music?" I would say that the musical core of the song finds me first & foremost, like the lead vocals. After that, it's usually the beat due to my tabla background. Sometimes, I have to consciously take myself in the direction of supporting the melody rather than the rhythmic aspects.
Another thing that I do myself, & so do a lot of other producers, is exclusive sound design sessions. I will sit for a couple of hours every once in a while & create my own sounds. & for the next piece of music that I write, I will use some of these sounds from my personal bank that I've saved. So, all my bass sound design patches, for example, are already created before I write music. I won't sit & create them while writing the music. This way, you learn to use your sounds wisely in your productions. What I mean by this is, I won't put the same sound in the following 5 projects that I do. Instead, I will curate them into my tracks intelligently & responsibly. At the same time, you need to know what kind of sound you want on a particular tune. Or else, even if you have it in the bank, you won't know what to use.
MM: Who/what are your biggest musical influences for this album & through your life?
MN: I've been listening to a lot of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab &, recently, Kaushiki Chakraborty. I've been listening to a lot of Pakistani classical artists as well, like Shafqat Ali Khan. Apart from these, I listen to a lot of Amon Tobin. Noisia is also a favourite & a go-to listen for me. It broke my heart when they separated last year. There are also many young kids doing fantastic stuff like (Bushin), Posij from Groningen, Netherlands. Obviously, there is Mefjus. These artists are all very contrasting from my classical influences, a different soundscape altogether.
Apart from these, for the past two years, I've been mostly listening to rhymes cause of my little one, hahaha. My wife is always listening to some great classical music. There are a lot of young kids who are out of this world as tabla players & musicians.
Talvin Singh, Nithin Sawhney, Karsh Kale, of course, are people I have been inspired by. I also listen to a lot of film music. I like Vishal Bharadwaj's music. Anything soulful & melodious.
Another interesting fact is that the music of these electronic artists that I mentioned is used extensively in video games. Another instance is Billain, a Bosnian neuro-bass artist, who composed music for Pacific Rim 2.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MM: What inspires you outside of music (artists, people, things from other art forms, disciplines, & walks of life) What do you like to do apart from making music?
MN: Anything that gives me goosebumps. A dance or acting performance, or comedy. I'm also at a stage in life where being a father teaches me so many things. Age & time will teach you that you don't need too many things in life.
Right from my childhood, I have been very much inspired by cultural movements around me. When I was a kid, apart from learning the Tabla, I used to play Dholak. In Bombay, everyone celebrates Ganpati around their house, right. So, I used to live in Old Bombay, Charni Road. In that gully, everybody would have a Ganpati Murti outside their house, & we all knew each other. Thus, everybody would ask me to play Dholak while they did their 'Aarti'. So, there would be a hundred people shouting & then me playing Dholak on top of that. This would happen at ten different houses in the area, where I would have somebody escorting me around since I was just a kid. This would go on till 1:30 AM. I loved this whole culture of hanging around & playing with everybody. For me, that was culture. My uncle used to make the Ganpati Murtis since he was an artist. My dad would help him too, & from them, I learnt about the craftsmanship that went into this yearly ritual. I would observe little things & imperfections in the statues. That, to me, was a piece of art & culture. These Ganpati statues were literally made in my house. My grandmother would make the clay/mud & then my uncle would mould it into shape. My uncle was a genius. This all had nothing to do with 'religion' for me. It was just fun to do & to experience. The 'Visarjan', when drummers are playing, is all part of the culture. These activities get naturally ingrained into your body & mind, & stay with you for your whole for. So, "Panduranga" is a part of that & comes naturally to me.
Growing up in Gujrat, I have heard so much of Gujrati folk music. So when my wife sang the vocals of "Dakla" to me, it resonated with me, & I knew I had to make something with it. These cultural things are just so deeply embedded in my mind & body that they just come out. That, in turn, inspires me to do more things. Now, my kid is doing the same thing, the process of cultural assimilation. She listens to all the music I listen to Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Shafqat Ali Khan, & listens to Jay-Z, Beyonce, & Noisia as well! She also likes my music so I'm happy about that. I never knew what 'natural' meant in that sense when my dad told me that I naturally gravitated towards rhythm when I was three years old. Now my daughter is two & a half years, & I'm beginning to see & understand what he meant. She moves naturally to the beats in Drum & Bass music & the spaces in other music. I now recall all these things that I forgot since I was 25 years old. Because if I didn't feed my daughter all these things like my father & uncle did for me, she would probably not get it from anywhere else.
Culture inspires me to do a lot of things in my life. I'm also a guy who is very attracted to food & that's another way that I observe, study & figure out other cultures.
Over the last few years, I've got into the art of direction by directing some of my music videos. I've understood the storytelling format even better now. That's why I mentioned to you that I get the visuals sometimes before making the music. It's cause the story is so clear in my head.
I'm not too much of an outdoors person, but I love nature whenever I get a chance to go out. I definitely prefer going out in nature as opposed to a club or other such social places. I'm not a very social person & I'm pretty awkward that way. I don't drink or smoke & I've been that way since I was born. I love going for bike rides with friends, talking about life & music. I was also running regularly before the lockdown, which I like to do.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
MM: I would like to give a shout-out to "Panduranga", one of my favourite tracks from last year, & to our favourite deity as well! Can you tell us a bit about creating this track & how you approached it, relating, fusing & balancing the serenity, devotion & meditative state of the vocals with the wild intensity, frenetic energy & sheer madness of the music? Also, what was the collaboration process like with Chandana Bala Kalyan Ji?
MN: Well, this kind of sound comes naturally to me. I don't have to think too hard for it. Of course, it takes a lot of hard work & focus. If I have to try too hard, I feel like it becomes somebody else's track...you know? Like I'm trying to be somebody else.
For this track, I had to combine the structure of a classical song - the Aalaap, & so on - with the structure of drum & bass. This meant writing a completely new structure altogether, which combined the best parts of both these styles while making the vocals shine all along.
When I heard Chandana sing, I got goosebumps just listening to her voice! The idea of taking a bhajan & putting it in the context of bass music was exciting. You have to respect the artistry & both the genres that you're working with. Aside from the technical stuff, a major part of it is how you think about it & how you put it down. When I heard Chandana sing this, the whole song was done right there, in my head. I didn't even need to put it on the DAW. I just asked her to send me a recording of the vocals at the tempo.
MN: The funny part is that I've never met her. She lives in Mumbai & I was in Gujrat during the first lockdown. I know her through a friend, Vivek Rajgopalan, who is a fantastic mridangam player & musician. I've heard all of her music & had been following her for a while. She had sung this bhajan online, on her Instagram & I was blown away. We had already been discussing the possibility of a collaboration. It was just about the correct timing & the proper thought going into it. I reached out with the idea & she was more than enthusiastic about being a part of it. She sent me the vocals tracked at 172bpm & the very next day, the track was ready.
As for her reaction to the final product, she was very honest & humble about not being familiar with this kind of music. She found it exciting & groovy, even though she has never listened to bass much in her life. I just feel fortunate that the track happened.
I'm not a religious person, but anything that gives me goosebumps, I take it in. The thing is, I like to keep it as it is. I adapt my music to fit around it & balance it out characteristically. I didn't touch Chandana's vocals at all. As you can hear, having her vocals in the track just as they were recorded made them stand out fully since everything else in the track is opposite to her voice. A good melody should be preserved & cherished to last as long as possible. The soul of classical music should be kept intact, in my opinion.
My premise is that, whether you're making hip-hop or a bass track, you have to tell a story with the music that shows something about who you are, where you come from, your creative process, & your perspective as an artist.
Image Courtesy: Belongstofilm
You Can Follow Mayur Narvekar on:
https://mosillator.bandcamp.com/album/spectrum
https://www.instagram.com/mosillator/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/Mo5illator/
https://soundcloud.com/bandishprojekt
https://www.facebook.com/bandishprojekt/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bandishprojekt
All Images courtesy of Mayur Narvekar and the Respective Photographers
