Electric Raga

Exoperimentation has long been the lifeblood of Shrikanth Sriram’s music. Initially trained as a tabla player,the musician soon switched to playing bass,influenced by the music of artistes like Led Zeppelin and Eberhard Weber. Now,however,Shri,as he is popularly known,says that he’s past the experimentation phase. “Now,I’m just trying to find new ways of expressing myself,” he says,as he prepares to unveil his new project — ShriLektric,a one-man act—at Bonobo in Mumbai tonight.

The multi-instrumentalist — he also plays the flute,cello and the sarangi — says that ShriLektric is going to be markedly different from his previous projects. “I’m trying to create a whole new avatar of myself. I’ve been working on the concept for over a year,” he says,“I don’t want the music to sound like electronica or acoustic. What I’m really attempting to do is to use the electronica to produce the acoustic in a new way.” Until now,Shri has mostly been performing what can be called ‘jazz-fusion’,which combines jazz improvisations with Indian ragas. Hopefully,he says,the concert at Bonobo will go ahead and become an album. “As of now,it’s just a live act,” he says.

Shri has been a key member of the Asian Underground scene in London since it first became a notable musical movement in the UK. He has played with such well-known musicians as Talvin Singh,Nitin Sawhney and DJ Badmarsh. But it’s a description he himself doesn’t use. According to him,‘Asian Underground’ is just an umbrella term that people use to describe Asian-influenced music.

All the same,he’s proud that this ‘movement’ has increasingly found great acceptance in India with a wide range of acts from the UK such as Talvin Singh,Asian Dub Foundation and Bandish Projekt performing in the country. “With Indians being introduced to music from all over the world, they are better able to connect with the new kinds of musical developments that are happening globally.” He hopes that this same eagerness of the new Indian audience to embrace new kinds of music will be in evidence at his concert tonight.