Clearly, one of India’s foremost advocates of ethnic street influenced bass-heavy music, Nucleya seems to be riding a wave of immense success with his most recent gigs and his phenomenal Koocha Monster EP. Known famously for his eclectic blend of traditional Indian street music, bollywood inspired melodies, and intense, face melting wobbles and basslines, local Delhi-ite Udyan Sagar, has come a very very long way since he co-founded one of India’s first electronic music collectives Bandish Projekt in the late 90’s.
His new remix EP contains a handful of tracks remixed by various Indian electronic artists, most of whom are his contemporaries, colleagues and good friends.
The first track off the EP, is a remix by Scottish Bhangra collective, Tigerstyle, who had previously collaborated with Nucleya for their record, Digi-Bhang, for his track Street Boy. It starts off with the ethnic Indian horn hook that defines the original layered over traditional dhol percussions and a basic break beat. After a true blooded Jhat styled sample, is when the goods kick in, turning the track right on its head, with an addition of high pitched synth melody and some really really deep wobbles in the back.
Next up, is Dub Sharma’s take on the track. Dub Sharma shot to fame with his folk-step production Tung Tung on MTV’s Sound Tripping. His version is alot more bass heavy with a heavy focus on glitchy, face-melting basslines and a chopped up re-invention of the tracks initial hook. Some real neat, bass-heavy and grimey wobbles on this edition of the track.
Right next is world renowned table player and percussionist Karsh Kale’s tabla infused remix.“I’ve been playing that track out a few times and was telling Nucleya about the reaction I was getting by dropping a live mashup of ‘Street Boy’ with another track”, says Karsh. “He then asked me to do a remix if I was so inspired, and I was. I don’t do remixes as much anymore so I packed a lot of tabla in this one, had to drop some Tabla Science in the mix”. True to his word, his edition of Street Boy has a massively groovy blend of urban beat work and fast paced tabla playing. The hook is slowed down but it has no effect on the overall tempo. Almost drum & bass-ish, this version features Karsh’s signature sound, which is always a superb blend of ethnic percussion with urban electronica.
Indian trap/bass producer Kaos, steps up next with his remix of South Indian inspired Bell Gadi. He really puts his talents to work with this future-bass/garage inspired remix, with heavy glitch influences, 808 samples, atmospheric elements, along with heavy resampling of the tracks original vocals. It then progresses its way to a massively funky future-house/deep house outro.
Drum & Bass heavyweight, Sound Avtar, is next in line with his edition of Nucleya’s take on Indian nursery rhyme, Akkad Bakkad. Known pre-dominantly for his hard-hitting drum & bass productions, Sound Avtar has taken things the Big-Room House route with this one. He’s re composed the original’s melody with arena-styled synth chord progressions that work it’s way to massive build up, followed by a festival-ready big room drop. The drop, characterised by heavy kick-drums and big-room melodies, would feel right at home during the headlining set of any major DJ around the world. The second drop is much more stomp-worthy as he changes the time signature to follow 12/8 pattern.
Nucleya’s own Festival Remix is what has defined his sets at all of his gigs off late. Its a harder, heavier, more Moombah-centric version with added synth horn samples.
Last, but certainly not least, is the impressive Sickflip version of Nucleya’s collaboration with Delhi Sultanate on the Reggae stylised New Delhi Nuttah. It features Sicklfip’s intense, in-your-face production style that’s almost a cross between drum & bass and heart-pounding, face-exploding glitch.
All in all, a wonderful compilation of some of the best talents on the Indian bass scene today, the EP features a wide spectrum of talents and sounds that are as diverse as they are unique. This is a perfect compilation of the wonderful talent the Indian Bass music scene has to offer.
You can get the entire EP for free, here, and stream the tracks below:
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