Dropbox Talent: JESSOP&CO.

Wild City explores the freshest sounds from the subcontinent in Dropbox Talents. This section isn’t about the who’s who in the scene, it's about relatively unheard of producers and musicians who we think make good music and are worth your time. If you’d like us to listen to your sounds, send the relevant info to music@thewildcity.com or contact us privately on SoundCloud.

This might not fit in with our regular Dropbox Talent rule of being completely unheard of but hear us out – JESSOP&CO. sent us a link to their page on SoundCloud with this imgur attachment, lifted off an interview we conducted with Smoke Inc. founder Nishit Arora in September. We were well aware from the minute we heard their sound that these weren’t newbies we were dealing with.

With no information or identity available on SoundCloud, we got in touch with JESSOP&CO. via email where we found out that the new outfit was comprised of Kolkata based experimental producers Anupal Adhikary and Subhojyoti Sen Sharma.

We’ve been keeping an eye on Anupal Adhikary’s warped productions - he had been releasing some stellar one-off experimental tunes on his SoundCloud page but it looks like all his old music has been wiped clear to make room for JESSOP&CO.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard something as completely demented as this. The duo has released two pieces of music on their SoundCloud page so far. ‘—‘ is a 30 minute long soundtrack-y collection of hammered, processed droney noises that could score a particularly twisted indie horror flick. Their second single 'পিত্ত' somehow manages to navigate through even darker terrain with sandpaper textures and basslines so abrasive that its manipulated thuds and glitches felt like they were being drilled directly into our skulls.

If you’re a fan of analogies, JESSOP&CO.’s anxiety inducing horror-electro remind us of Jamblu’s dystopian ‘Bone Ringing’ EP i.e. this isn’t by any stretch of the imagination something you can ‘drop’ at 11pm at your friends' house party.

“The sound of JESSOP&CO. is inspired by the decaying/rotting, the macabre discoloration of this city and its inhabitants and the various other forms of malaise (particularly those which suddenly creep up on you as you are about to descend from your favourite form of conveyance or mode of intoxication).

The project is a practice, continuous in nature. It has been developing for quite a period of time as an experiment in noise, sound and ambience and the hybridisation of analog and digital.”

JESSOP&CO.’s sound is extremely experimental, dense, immersive (to the point of being almost overbearing), and not for the faint hearted. If you’ve ever felt like slowly and poetically drowning in a bottomless pit of tar, we recommend you give this a listen.

JESSOP&CO. are currently working on their debut EP, which we’ve heard will be out very soon. Keep an eye out on their SoundCloud page for more.

Words: Diya Gupta