Anish Kumar & Baalti Come Together As Stunt Doubles On Eponymous Debut Record

UK DJ-producer Anish Kumar and Baalti, the San Francisco duo of Mihir Chauhan and Jaiveer Singh, have come together to form the outfit Stunt Doubles. After years of homaging their South Asian cultural roots through crate-digging and sample-chopping, the two artists met in person at this year's Glastonbury Festival, where both played at the South Asian talent-centred Azaadi stage.

The trio subsequently worked together over the weekend, creating music that they have just released as Stunt Doubles, complete with visuals based on fictional characters that caricature awkward South Asian men of their parents' generations. The music is presented with two 2-track EPs, the latest of which dropped recently alongside a vinyl release combining the 4 tracks of their discography.

The new EP shows both the acts at their most musically focused on 'The Fastest Boxer In The East', where bhangra beats and electrified tumbi-like sounds swiftly get carried up by four-to-the-floor beats and basslines from house music. The trio then lets the melodic hook of the cinematic soundtracks they sample lead the way.

It's an approach that defines the record. The compositions vary mostly through the colours of their elements and how they are introduced rather than their roles in the assembly, which remains similar throughout.

The heavy inclusion, manipulation and chopping of samples on the punchier 'Speak Softly' and the breaks-tinted 'Title Music' prioritise colourfulness over the economic use of fewer elements and maximalism is used to create intensity. On 'Chalo Chalo', the trio fully leans into the clash that their saturated samples bring, letting them engage in a trade-off. However, it is 'The Fastest Boxer In The East' which does the best job of trusting its source material. It lets the inherent synergy do the bridging between retro/folk South Asian sounds and modern dance music, while the gritty treatment of the samples adds the needed intensity.

Listen to both the eponymous EPs below and follow Anish Kumar and Baalti for more.