Wild City Singled Out: August

2 September 2016

Wild City handpicks the most interesting one-off singles released by artists in South-Asia in our monthly feature - Singled Out. If you’d like us to listen to your music, send the relevant info to music@thewildcity.com or contact us privately on SoundCloud.

‘LUV CNDY PRTY’ by Talal Qureshi

Pakistani producer Talal Qureshi’s career has taken a massive upward curve this year since he began travelling and performing all over the world for Diplo’s Mad Decent Block Parties. His latest single ‘LUV CNDY PRTY’ from an upcoming EP TBA is a reverb heavy, neon-tinted banger that’s packed with layers of choppy vocal samples and vibrant, borderline overwhelming synth laden melodies and whomps.

Our friends in Bangalore have released a whole lot of music last month and no-intro-needed _RHL’s interpretation of UNKLE and Thom Yorke’s super popular song and accompanying video ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’ is the first of many on this list. Giri takes a favourite, stretches it out and lets it breathe (a lot) before finally satisfying with that great ‘drop’ at around the 4:30 mark. It’s a beaut, though not necessarily the best we’ve heard from the producer who should really just put out an album already...

‘Watcha Want’ by Sandunes feat. Rish

‘Watcha Want’ is the latest product of Sandunes’ recurring DLC (Day Long Creation) series. The thing with projects like this is that they’re meant to be creative outlets and collaborative experiments for musicians (as opposed to well thought out music made for more than just the sake of making) so it always sounds a little forced. Having said that, it’s a pretty good track for one day, not astounding, but fun and interesting and either way, it’s always a pleasure to hear something new from Sanaya who’s becoming a veritable juggernaut in the scene with the variety of ways she’s involved in music and the arts in India.

‘Verse’ by Mr. India X Aniruddh Menon

Two favourites Mr. India and Aniruddh Menon collaborate on the mildly cringe-y and very funny ‘Verse’, complete with suggestive artwork and all. It starts off with Mr. India telling Menon that they don’t know each other at all “so let me tell you about my sex life” (getting down to brass tax) before rapping out his entire, slightly gross, brutally honest and hilariously delivered history with women, both real and fictional. ‘Verse’ does need a little more work to make it sound less amateurish but we could listen to an album’s worth of this stuff easy.

‘:(’ by Spakle and Fade

Sparkle and Fade follows his new ‘Kindergarten Crush’ EP with a much-too-short, whimsical lo-fi experimentation, aptly titled as a sad face1809215':1809218'. W1809223're really digging the sound and vibe of sparkle and fade so far - here's hoping we're going to get a lot more more the masked Bombay producer.

‘Shoveling’ by Reckoner Ft. Pardafash

Ex Machli vocalist Sandhya Visvanathan’s solo project Pardafash might have only a tiny amount of output, but it’s bursting at the seams with potential. She helped produce and lent her voice on ‘Shoveling’ with Hyderabad/Brooklyn producer Reckoner (who we wrote about ages ago here) on his new album ‘Fracking’. If there is a more evocative voice in India than Sandhya’s we have yet to find it. Combined with Reckoners delicate, complex melodies dotted by sudden rushes of keys and string refrain, ‘Shoveling’ is an ethereal, beautifully produced tune that grows on you with each listen.

‘Kal’ by Prabh Deep x Sez

Damn, Prabh. This is the Punjabi hip-hop we need. Created along with go-to desi hip-hop producer Stunnah Sez Beats, Delhi based rapper Prabh Deep spits fire on ‘Kal’ (and the much cheesier ‘Feel Me’). The video by Anubhav Singh also does a good job at conveying the meaning of the song even if you don’t understand Punjabi (though even my own spotty knowledge of the language was enough to appreciate it). Like most good Indian art, video and song both boil down to respecting maa.

‘Borders Crossed’ by Gourski & Seibel performed by Anhad

Man.goes Human drummer and multi-instrumentalist Anhad Khanna recently launched his own eponymous Dn’B project and caught our attention with a pretty impressive video of his rendition/play over of ‘Borders Crossed’ by Gourski & Seibel, performed live. Not the most earth shattering stuff musically, but an interesting and forward-thinking way of presenting electronic music live nevertheless. Apparently he’s got a full 60-90 minute set of this stuff all ready to showcase.

Words: Diya Gupta

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