As far as Asvajit Boyle was concerned, Syd Barrett was a demigod. “I grew up idolizing the psychedelic rock acts of the 60s and 70s,” says the young musician. He loved them not just for their incredible music, but for their near constant innovation – as musicians and performers, the likes of Pink Floyd and Brian Eno never let up. For Asvajit the guitar player reigned supreme while the “DJ was the lowest common denominator: a glorified jukebox dishing out other peoples music.”
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Once the guitarist in the popular band Power Cut Circus, Asvajit is now better known as a DJ and composer. This month he launches five original tracks of electronic dance music under the title ‘The Hard Boiled EP.’ He says his passion for dance music is in part inspired by his conviction that it’s the only genre that has “the power of some of the musical movements of the past.”
His decision to create digital music is also driven by a desire to stay current and plugged in to one of the great musical movements of our times. “Electronic music is progressing at an unimaginable rate, with the sound, artists, technology and hardware improving every year,” he says, adding that by choosing the digital format over the traditional one that employs CDs or vinyl, he’s expanding his options both as a musician and as a performer.
Broadly speaking, the tracks “Hard Boiled” fall into either minimal, techno or progressive genres. Each track is relatively long – the samples he has up on www.soundcloud.com/asvajit are all closing in on 10 minutes - and each is accented with some pretty interesting stuff. Take the question “could you define the word paranoiac?” which opens ‘Critical Method.’ The lazy, trippy beats of the track are interlaced with more lines from an old Dali Interview (Circa 1963); slowed down, murmured phrases and disjointed words echo through the music. Another track “Just a Moment” with its heavy thump and distortion (Asvajit describes it as “deep, dark, and dirty prog”) uses the voice of one the greatest villains of all time – HAL 9000, the computer from Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’
The release of the EP comes after nearly 5 years of work. Working with Ableton Live, (a digital audio workstation), Asvajit has been teaching himself the basics of his art. In Sri Lanka, musicians with similar ambitions are a rare breed, and so he hasn’t found anyone to learn from or collaborate with. “Basically I’ve taught myself to do this on the Internet; it has taken me almost 5 years to get to a point where I feel comfortable about releasing something publicly…” he says. In the meantime, he’s also been cultivating a faithful following on the DJ circuit. It’s one of the reasons he was drawn to electronic music in the first place – the sheer high of keeping the dance floor packed with people moving to his music.
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To keep up with the flood of fresh tracks and to ensure his own playlist always offers something novel, Asvajit spends several hours every day sourcing music. He and his friend Andre Pereira have organized several parties designed to introduce people to different kinds electronic dance music. “We have earned a reputation for paying attention to detail that large scale commercial party organizers miss out on,” says Asvajit, emphasizing his audiophile credentials. All this should be on display this weekend, at the launch.
“We think it’s time to get the ball rolling for original electronic music production on our sunny island,” say the organizers. In what might be a first for Sri Lanka, Asvajit will be performing a live version of EP layering new sounds onto his original tracks to create a distinctive session. “I’ll be playing electronic instruments and samples and adding fills and effects in real time over my EP, basically making it something different every time.”
Hard Boiledwill take place at the Shelton’s Beach Hut (near Golden Mile), Mt. Lavinia on the April 9. Copies of the EP will be available for sale. Tickets are are available at Barefoot, Kess and online at http://www.ticketslk.com/events/view/the_hardboiled_ep |
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