Wild City Singled Out: October 2016

23 November 2016

Wild City handpicks the most interesting one-off singles released by artists in South-Asia in our new 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.


Things are looking peachy for fresh RBMA grad Oceantied. He did his two weeks at the lauded institution just under two months ago and already he’s all set to play the first ever Boiler Room in India with Actress (!!!). Bahirat released the title track off his upcoming debut EP ‘Tribes’ to top it all of. It’s (expectedly) immaculately produced and features his signature high bpm jungle and footwork progressions, combined with field recordings. Energetic and dancefloor friendly, ‘Tribes’ will doubtless get its share of attention, though we were hoping for something a bit more…well, jolting. We’ll save our thoughts for when the EP's out.

‘Mr. Popper’ by When Pandas Attack
Delhi producer Ankur Chauhan a.k.a. When Pandas Attack is back making music after a brief hiatus. 'Mr. Popper' is barely over a minute long but features his signature twinkling, airy production layered under distorted vocals. A nice, slightly unassuming little downtempo electronic experiment that hopefully marks more to come.

‘Philosophize’ by Parekh & Singh
This is a new addition to P&S’ beautiful album ‘Ocean’, which has received attention from fans and critics from around the globe, and even got the duo a deal with Primary Talent International (home of a very impressive list of global talent from Alt J to Dizzee Rascal, Mount Kimbie to Lana Del Ray). ‘Philosophize’ is one of the earliest songs they wrote; it’s typically Nischay Parekh – sort of bitter-sweet (no saccharine traps here) yet profound, and set to simple, feather light music. Combined with their new Wes Anderson harkening look and videos, Parekh & Singh are doubtless going to do very, very well in the years to come.

‘Getting Closer’ by Hatim
Released via our favourite Pakistani collective Forever South, Lahore based producer Hatim’s latest tune ‘Getting Closer’ is brief (barely over 2 and a half minutes log) but packs a punch with its bright but dense vox peppered Purity Ring/Data Romance reminiscent electronica tune ‘Getting Closer’. The production isn’t spotless but the laid back track certainly deserves a few listens.

'You Are Not Alone (Mother)' by Rain Dog Feat. Monsoonsiren
You read that right! It’s everyone’s favourite mysterious brooder back with a predictably beautiful collaboration with Project Mooncircle’s Rain Dog. To be completely honest, we’ve missed Nathan Menon’s whispery falsettos and while we enjoy the cinema updates and cat pics on his social media platforms, we really just want music. Rain Dog’s production is the perfect compliment to Menons voice; it’s light, bright and spacious. We’ve also heard they’re more collaborations with Tom Day coming… we’re keeping our ears open.
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‘Cry’ Feat. Gaya by Kumail
Kumail Hamid’s Shlomo-esque airy, ambient productions have had our attention since the beginning. ‘Cry’ is another heavily atmospheric number that features the blues-y, languid vocals of Gaya. Quite unusual for his normally instrumental production, but interesting nonetheless and a possible hint for what might be coming…it’s been a while since his last album.

‘Far’ by Yeti
We have no idea who this is but the cinematic production and heavily filtered, ghostly vocals on ‘Far’ by Yeti – the only piece of music on his SoundCloud page so far – caught our ears. Pretty stuff, listen below and see what you make of it.

‘Outsider’ by SundogProject
This one was released as a single just before Rahul Das finally put out his anticipated album ‘Tora’ – which we loved and reviewed here. ‘Outsider’ actually stands as an anomaly compared to the rest of the album. The song has a distinctly throwback quality to it which you’re either going to love or well, not quite get. I belong in the latter group (don’t think it’s the majority though) - deep down inside we all are angsty teens with black side swept bangs, but I’d rather not be reminded of it in 2016.

Words: Diya Gupta
Image credit (main): deadtheduck
Image credit (thumb) courtesy Yeti

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