Nitin Sawhney - From London to Planet Earth!

[modz1]

In this, the fifth in a series of DV247 Forums exclusive interviews, we turn our attention to a musician who has quite rightly earned the tag of 'Genius'. He's a multi-instrumentalist, a composer, producer, engineer, orchestrator, collaborator, mentor, traveller, philosopher and poet.. A man so incredibly talented that he's one of a rare group of artists capable of inspiring great awe in his audience as well as entertaining them and enriching their lives musically..His name..?

Nitin Sawhney

Following his successful 'London Undersound' album tour, and a triumphant BBC Electric Proms appearance, DV247 Forums caught up with Nitin in a phone interview in December '08..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Hi Nitin, firstly, .. Following the successful London Undersound tour dates, and hopefully a well-earned rest, what project are you currently working on?

NS
I'm working on quite a few film scores, I've actually got five on the go right now, working on a computer game which unfortunately I'm not allowed to talk about and have a full year mapped out already for 2009 so looking at scheduling everything and how its all going to work. The main thing I'm doing right now is working on a film about Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian guy who got shot at Stockwell, and about the farcical inquest that took place recently. Also, I'm doing the music for a film about Brian Epstein called 'The Fifth Beatle', and the music for Deepa Mehta’s next project called 'Exclusion'.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Is ‘Spirit Dance Studios’ at your home still used for the majority of all stages of your work or do you periodically visit outside facilities?

NS
It was until this time last year.. I moved then to the Matrix complex, I have a new studio there which I sometimes call "the hive' and its a really nice place for me to work and separate things out because I was wiring so much at my house whilst still trying to keep it like feeling like a house, but I found that very hard to do and was working 'til really late there and it constantly felt like a place of work. I needed to change all that and now I have separation so it works well for me now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Are you always visually focused on what is to be achieved in your works, for example, finding sound sculptures, rhythm & melody to accommodate an ultimate vision, or, and please forgive the metaphor, are there times when you can see the door that needs to be opened but not immediately sure which corridor to take?

NS
The latter happens a lot when I work on my own albums. When I'm working on scores for other people and fortunate to work with visuals, dancers, choreographers, theatre, film directors, sculptors etc, there’s already something 'there' that has a vision behind it, and you're collaborating with that vision even when you're working with someone else who's also a song writer or musician/composer, you're also sharing a vision - From there it's your job to help to realise that vision and give it more substance by trying to uncover the subtext or emotional narrative behind it with sound. The difference is, when I make an album it's very much about finding a theme that makes sense to you allows you to focus on something.

For me I don't like to feign focus by trying to find a genre or type of music, I like to find focus in a theme or idea, and I'll spend a long time trying to find that theme but then that will take me down lot's of different corridors like you said. If you are trying to find a theme to hang things on, you need to wander down a lot of corridors first and thats what I do to begin with so it's very hard for me to initiate the process of making an album - which is why there's an average of two to three years between albums. I do have a strong idea forming for my next album .. if it forms quickly it may result in an album this year..I just don't know and I can't rush that process sometimes..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Taking on so many roles yourself with regards to the engineering, writing, arranging and production process, is there any particular stage you enjoy less or more?

NS
In terms of engineering.. If I'm working live, the prime engineer I work with is a fantastic front of house engineer, David McKewan. In the studio, I work a great deal with another fantastic engineer Dean James who really understands the way I think and work. Sometimes however I work completely on my own, doing all the engineering and programming myself but although I love working with sounds a great deal, I do find it tedious just working with the hardware side of things. I like to get into feeling information as soon as possible, but if I'm limited by my own lack of knowledge, I'd rather talk to somebody who's got more of an understanding of a particular way in approaching sound.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
From early experiences of watching you live and checking your albums, you have always seemed to literally plug yourself into to the cream of emerging new underground talent –Just how do you find these fresh, new artists, and what qualities do they express that creates your desire to collaborate?

NS
First of all, I like doing a lot of workshops. I work with Jeremy Davis and Debra King who run 'Aftershock' which we've done together since the Manchester commonwealth games, where I've been working with a lot of different, young artists, all around the world in fact to create workshops in local communities with artists who come together and realise their own vision - I act as a kind of mentor for them and collaborate with them. At the end of say a week, I get them to compose their own music and then perform it on stage as a band of up to twenty people. I find this really, really interesting as sometimes you'd put perhaps a cellist together with a rapper.. or a melodica player with a beat boxer.. y'know it could be all kinds of things. Through that, I've met a lot of people who've appeared on my albums.

Also, I'll go 'out there' and I'll find or hear about people even through MySpace or through various music industry contacts who'll tell me about someone who's up and coming - for example, I was very lucky in finding people like Taio Cruz (on 'Human' album) and now he's one of the biggest R&B artists in the country. Max Beesley was in my band many years ago who I kind of discovered when he came out of Cheatem's music college.. It's quite cool and very exciting to find these talented people early, and I enjoy finding them before the music industry gets their claws into them. No one knew that Rox (Roxanne Tatei) would eventually get signed to a huge record deal with EMI/Rough trade and since appearing on London Undersound, is currently recording a new album in New York. I know it's not 'because of' their appearance on my albums, ‘cause they get signed before I release the albums but that makes it even more exciting for me because I think that my intuition about them was borne out by the fact they then get signed by a big record label.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
You’ve been quoted as connecting ‘rhythm to mathematical poetry’, could you elaborate on this theory and how it assists you in the composition and recording process.

NS
I'm very interested in rhythm from all kinds of different perspectives, whether it's the rhythms of India in terms of mathematical time cycles, particularly for me, my interest in North Indian classical music with very complex structures and you can work within 11 beat cycles, 17 beat cycles, 10 beat.. it's pretty much infinite. Y'know Zakir Hussein sometimes plays solos in 16 and three quarter beat cycles (laughs)- so it's pretty 'out there', what you hear..

Working within some of these structures, I find it very useful working compositionally for orchestras. I'll use Indian classical rhythms quite often to allocate different sections of sounds or orchestral playing, perhaps allocating one particular part of the time cycle to the brass section or the woodwind, or whatever.. But then, at the same time, I also enjoy rhythms from all kinds of different perspectives. As a DJ, I'm always playing around with everything from drum 'n bass to dubstep, to Brazilian house.. all kinds of things including more conventional rhythms in terms of 'sheer groove'! I have a strong background and affinity with Flamenco rhythm. The rhythms of Bulerias or Solea I find very infectious and really powerful and I sometime incorporate some of those in what I do.

You know, you can use mathematics to enhance excitement, and that’s what I try to do, but I don't want to make it a cerebral exercise, and that's what I mean by 'mathematical poetry', it's an emotional response to the complexities of rhythm that I'm interested in (rather than sitting there and making calculations) and it's actually about finding the inner rhythms of mathematics - and that's something that takes time. If you check out YouTube for instance, a guy called Taalis, and watch his piece in 10 beat cycles, played in Jhaptaal - he is a person who's jamming on the drums and he's an amazing student of mathematics applying that very well to drums - I'm always excited by the possibilities of that!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
With such a massively prolific output of your own works, what would you say are your 5 personal favourite songs – and why?

NS
In no particular order, the first one might be 'Homelands' –



It was the first time I got to hear some of my string arrangements on record, and I was quite excited about that, which allowed me to create a riff or string section that worked in the way I wanted it to emotionally, and it gave me a powerful backdrop for putting together different styles I was very into, particularly Flamenco and Kavali singing with also Brazilian influences from Nina Morandez’ voice - I feel it was the most 'blended' piece of music that represented all the feelings of music I was into and grew up with.

Next would be 'Breathe Light'-



..which was inspired by my trip to Sth. Africa, interviewing Nelson Mandela at his house - and it really came from that spirit of emotion and a feeling of journey and movement. Also I was very happy with the strings on that, and its piano riff, which I really enjoyed playing live. Listening at that time to a lot of acoustic kind of drum and bass from people like 4 Hero, it felt like the right piece at the right time.

and 'Sunset'..



..in that I remember writing that track between the sound check and the gig at The Forum (Kentish Town) - at the time I could hear all the music in my head, but I asked Eska (who was singing with me at the time) if she could sing certain words after I sang the melody to her, and she sang it back exactly as I was hearing it in my head. Another musician around at the time Juanta sang a certain riff for me too and that helped make the track happen so I could take it into the studio for completion - it works really well for me as a 'track'.

One other track I'm very happy with is 'Days of Fire'..



..It was very much about trying to put something together that was 'about that time' but I wanted to create something that had a reality and authenticity to it and it wasn't contrived and added to the desensitization that was already out there in terms of peoples attitudes or perspectives about what happened during 7/7. I wanted to find someone who was there who could make a personal comment, and there was Natty who was actually at both incidents - when he watched the bus explode in Tavistock Square in front of him on 7/7, and he was also a few train carriages behind Jean Charles de Menezes getting shot at Stockwell a couple of weeks later. For me it was important to work with someone who had genuine experience and so it became a track of reflection rather than desensitization - that's what I felt was powerful.

The fifth track I feel passionate about, the first track I did for Outcaste records, called 'Migration' from the album of the same name.



It was a kind of conceptual journey - the idea was to create a track that communicated the whole epic journey of my parents from India to London, and the shock of that. I turned it into four categories; Departure:Arrival: Adaption:Integration. I remember writing it and feeling really happy with how it worked and allowed me to express different influences I had at the time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Everyone outside the capital was given the impression that Londoners, unified by the 7/7 tragedy, gathered a collective attitude of rebellion towards the attack and wanted to return to normality literally the day after. ‘Bring it home’ beautifully illustrates this theme of unification at a time of crisis, and you’ve obviously felt this within the musical community, but how do you feel Londoners themselves communicated the long-term effects of July 05, inspiring you to write the Undersound album?

NS
To be honest with you, it's the diversity and complexity and the eclecticism of the responses plus the diaspora of London, that's what inspired me. Effectively the album is a microcosm as much as it can be. By choosing the musicians and collaborators I worked with, I was trying to get across a sense of all the different feelings and response that there were to what happened on 7/7..well, not just 7/7 but London generally as a whole. I think that was my aim in engaging both people who were very well known, like Paul McCartney, Anoushka Shankar and Imogen Heap to people who were young and on the cutting edge like Aruba Red or Natty and Rox and trying to find a sense of representing a London that was quite diverse. I wasn't trying to create a particular personal vision in some ways, in fact I was trying to disseminate the intensity of that by working with a lot of different people, so in that respect, I wasn't into the idea of creating a narcissistic vision of London, I was trying to find a sense of the zeitgeist of what London is and engage a lot of people in order to do that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Could you give an insight into the personal, creative and technical preparations involved for your recent appearance on the BBC Electric Proms?

NS
It did take me quite a while to try and find a flow in the tracks I was putting together to ensure there was enough material from the new album and also a retrospective of work, making sure it flowed in terms of the orchestra. I had also to think about all of the collaborators and the flow of people coming on and off stage, not to be disruptive or look too contrived. There needed to be a build up of intensity, emotion, tempo and energy during the course of the gig and a representation of different types of idea so it didn't feel like a restless gig, not feeling like things were stagnating or getting boring. It's very much about putting together a flow that works at a lot of different levels, that hopefully challenges the audience but also draws them in, that makes the band and the orchestra feel comfortable and there's a flow to the way they're working and things don't feel too 'forced' for them.

For me, this is like the process of being a DJ, you have to work hard to find a flow of sound for people to engage with, that's what I love doing and probably why I enjoy DJ'ing so much aswell.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
As a DJ, it seems your love of all, non-genre specific world music is represented in your DJ sets. Are these more chill-out, lounge affairs or perhaps gigs where you really get chance to shake a dance floor apart?

NS
I've had some really nice feedback from gigs because people seem surprised, in a good way, at what I do when I DJ because I play a lot of dark, full on, club, quite hard music. Having DJ'd at places like Fabric and a lot internationally, I'm into getting a crowd moving, quite excited and leaving them on a high. Quite often I'll bring in a live musician or two across beats that I might program up, so I'll keep a flow of beats and a flow of emotion and allow the time for the crowds ears to recover from sub bass and big sounds by putting in moments of soundscaping that might only last half a minute or so - for me, creating a good club set is about 'tension and release', keeping a crowd excited, keep them waiting and then hitting them with a beat that's gonna be very infectious and exciting for them but has an emotional depth aswell.

I play vinyl, CD and use a laptop, for me it's an onslaught of sound and I'm working with whatever I can get my hands on to create something that's gonna excite people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Bands such as Elbow have recently endorsed a return to bring dynamics back into the music mastering process, using no brick wall type compression on their latest album, instead leaving it to the listener to turn a track up or down as they feel. What approach did you adopt regarding the mastering process on London Undersound, and which camp in general do you favour?

NS
It's very interesting, Guy is a very good friend of mine, and a nice person: I respect where he's coming from and he really cares about his music a lot, which is great. I think in a similar way but I try and adopt a range of different perspectives on mastering. Sometimes I will 'limit' my own work, I'm not a massive fan of being dogmatic about how that works and I'll take for example two different versions of my music to the mastering suite and I'll work with Frank Arkwright at Metropolis, a fantastic mastering engineer who uses amazing gear to get the sound we're looking for. There, I'll take one limited and one unlimited version so we have the possibility of playing with dynamics as much as we want. I also do a lot of A/B'ing all the time during mastering and I make sure I master over two days, take the entire album away, listen to every track, make extensive notes and compare it to things I've done before. Next day I'll go back in and work it again with the same engineer and build on what we've achieved so that everything is as loud and as powerful as it can be without losing the sensitivity of the emotion in the music.

DV247:
It's almost as if you're taking the performance aspect right to the mastering stage where you would take maybe two or three different versions and almost 'jam' with the dynamics effects processing with the engineer to get out what you feel is right..?

NS
Definitely, and I think one of the big things for this is to use sonic references, which can be everything from the latest Radiohead album to listening to albums I've had since being a kid, or suddenly jump into a Miles Davis or Dizzie Gillespie album, then jumping to a dub-step album, Vex or Burial - it's about listening to a whole range of different approaches to music. You have to think what is it you're looking for within that music and what is the focal point sonically and musically to what you're trying to say?

You have to ask what is an appropriate reference point for say a piece of music thats trying to capture an old kinda Hollywood string sound, so I may check out Henry Mancini, or jump from that to thinking about the drums having a roughness to them - it has to connect all the different pieces of music together, not to sound like a scrap book but a cohesive body of work. It's a delicate process because, on the one hand you might be 'mixing' to maybe one or two solid references and then you might 'master' to a whole range of references.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Putting the technology aside, when inspiration strikes, do you favour immediately picking up an acoustic guitar or sitting at a piano?

NS
When inspiration strikes I kind of think “what is it I'm trying to say?” and an appropriate way to put that across. I don't really think about it to be honest, it might be I just pick up a pen and start writing some lyrics or jot down some notes, or I might 'think' of some chords in my head. Sometimes I might just go with a 'feeling' and start very badly beat boxing (laughs) myself and thinking ok I have to play with that rhythm, beatbox it into a phone, and later on put it down, programme the drums up, or whatever and start or build with that beat. It could be a whole range of things, a piano riff motif that might come to mind.. it's always about what I want to say and what is the idea first and then constantly every ten or fifteen minutes I ask myself "am I getting closer to the idea or am I getting further away"? If I'm getting further away, it doesn't matter how good something sounds, I'll dump it! It might sound good but it has no depth, and if something’s got no depth, it doesn't mean anything to me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
A lot of your albums have included dialogue clips and news extracts introducing and connecting certain tracks.. For source material do you have something like CNN running constantly?

NS
(laughs) Actually if I was going to pick a news station it probably wouldn't be CNN.. I tend to look for a whole range of news stories actually, from propaganda matrix online to the BBC, the newspapers, The Guardian & Independent, even check out some of the right wing press and see what they're saying. I'll look at lots of different sources of information, and then I'll question all those sources and double, triple check what they have said and try and find the people who might of been around at the time, being the actual originators of some of these news stories. Sometimes I'll go the point, as I did with the Natty track, of interviewing the lawyer for Jean Charles de Menezes’ family. I went to track her down and talk to her about things and her voice actually appears on the album as a result of a conversation I had with her.

I'm not into the idea of superficial news investigation. I find it important to be rigorous with your understanding of things so that what comes out has real genuine depth and authenticity - and that's what I'm always looking for is something authentic because if you're going to be open to all different types of musical influence, you have to have a respect for the concept of authenticity aswell otherwise it can just sound like you're diluting music rather than creating something which has more substance to it.

DV247:
One thing that really caught my ear was the 'Street Guru' track, parts one and two - It sounded almost like you were in the back of a New York cab..?

NS
Well, I was, but it was a Chicago cab (laughs).. That was a totally spontaneous ramble from a guy called Jeff Jacobs who, again I went back to track down because I put him on royalties for those tracks. But he was an amazing talker and I really liked what he did and I found it a much more interesting approach to actually find someone who was a real motor mouth but who also had an amazing amount to say about the world with strong opinions and interesting perspectives. I often think that you can come across these 'street gurus', people who seem to wander the corridors of life and have their own take on things who have a lot to say in their own personal philosophy, not based on any well known philosopher other than their own experience of the world. Those are the people who I want to find, who engage with reality and have an observational or anecdotal kind of perspective to divulge.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV247:
Music for you is obviously the language of true communication, a development of humanity, and represents escapism from the sadness and terrors sometimes present in real life – Do you remain optimistic that music itself will contribute as much as politics, business and other socio-cultural influences to eventually lead to a more utopian global society?

NS
Well so far, politics has done very little to contribute to a utopian society, in fact it's done a lot to undermine it. Music has always been a universal language that joins people together rather than works towards dividing people up. Politics is very much about instigating the language of power, of control, manipulation and also fear, quite often. I find working with the concept of economics, the whole premise of which I find quite frightening in lots of ways, in that economics is defined literally as the allocation of scarce resources to meet unlimited wants. And so it's actually the theory of greed, from looking at Adam Smith's theories of the price mechanism to the concept of free markets and as we're seeing now that the infinite consumptionism and greed that economics promotes and that politicians promote in society doesn't work.

For me, Music is about a sense of community, a sense of communication, expression, catharsis, self-empowerment and self discipline, working collaboratively with other people, being open minded, having sensitivity towards other people, an emotional engagement with the world and with yourself - I think all of those aspects are what will bring the world to a much better place, I don't really feel that politics is the way to do that…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you enjoyed this interview, then please bookmark it below for 'digg' and 'del.icio.us' etc and send it to your friends on Facebook & MySpace

This interview copyright DV247.com Forums 2009

[sureno]

Got to say this has been a very "different" type of interview for me to read, not so much plug ins and out board gear but the impression i got is the lifestyle and methodology behind it all the real essence of rhythm in a way, i find it quite hard to explain and quite frankly a lot of what he relates too is way way beyond me!

If im to be honest i didnt know enough about him to be familiar with his works but that is down to my sheer ignorance. i found it quite daunting at points to understand on how he reflects on views and methods he uses. he shows a certain "living it" mentality which has intrigued me to delve a little deeper into his roots and find out a little bit of bio about him. He comes across a very deep person!

and again like all your other interviews DV thanks for sharing this experience with us, these insights have been most valuable

[EdRyan]

MJ Cole mix of sunset was a class track !

Good read that. He's a bit different to most musicians.

[ndk]

I really enjoyed reading this interview. Its much more about how he works and where he draws his influences from rather than just the kit he uses. A refreshing and inspirational read!

I had never heard of Nitin Sawhney before this interview and have since listened to a lot of his tracks, i really like them and they will definitely be coming with me on my forth coming travels.

[sphelan]

I am really impressed. I had never heard of Nitin before and so was totally unfamiliar with his music. I really like the interview and he seems like a rare breed of musician. Listening to what I can find on myspace and YT for the moment, I am awestruck by the sheer variety and volume of work he has completed. World music is so rich and to find another artist who explores it in the way Nitin does is a totally unexpected.

My sincerist congratulations on a very enlightening interview and thank you very much DV forums for opening another a new door.

Top job!

[I_Am_Bic_Pentameter]

A good interview.

'but if I'm limited by my own lack of knowledge, I'd rather talk to somebody who's got more of an understanding of a particular way in approaching sound.'

I like his openess to collaboration and willingness to learn and explore.