With 'Bollymood', Aman Karna Is The Latest Nepalese Beatmaker To Sample South Asian Cinema
16 December 2022
While Kathmandu's Aman Karna isn't the first producer from Nepal to make beats out of film music samples – Phatcowlee's 'Cinema' comes to mind as a standout example of past similar attempts – he is the latest proponent of a canon that has resulted in some of the choicest works from the region.
A member of the prominent group Phosphenes, Karna homages his childhood recollections of Bollywood with the 5-track release 'Bollymood'. He extracts snappy and succinct melodic motifs from the samples and repeats them to place them as the defining hooks. Meanwhile, ambient and downtempo background decoration does the true heavy lifting.
The work rewards sticking around with surprises – whether in the form of singer Nitika's standout verses on 'Going Round In Circles' or the deviation from the usual as Karna switches from using sampling to inform his melodies to using it to inform his textures on the closer 'Cab Or Rat?'.
Listen to the EP below and follow Aman Karna for more information.