Filter Coffee With A Spoonful Of Bass
With two incredibly talented artists taking to the stage this past weekend, an evening of spellbinding performances was inevitable. IndiEarth At The Park on Saturday started on a high note with a performance by ethnotronica duo Filter Coffee – featuring flautist Sriram Sampath and percussionist Swarupa Ananth, bringing together textured sounds with Indian classical influences and electronica grooves.
Where exactly did the term ethnotronica come from? “We actually picked up the word on our last tour in Camden town!” laughs Sriram. “They had a cool poster that used it to describe us, so we picked it up from there.”
The duo are also all set to embark on another UK tour this summer, and will be playing at the Oneness Gathering festival in Glastonbury. “This is our third tour to the UK,” Sriram told IndiEarth. “Touring the UK is something else! We’re looking forward to a lot of collaborations – last time we collaborated with bass players, rappers, spoken word artists, guitarists! I’m looking forward to bringing back influences – it’s a different feeling playing at these festivals. The crowd that comes in is a limited audience, and very intimate”.
As a flautist, Sriram dabbles in flutes from all around the world. “My specialty is the bamboo flute – I also play the Chinese dizi, the Egyptian ney flute, the metal flute and the didgeridoo.” The future for the band looks bright, with a few collaborations with Australian artists Sampology and Spoonbill also set to be released in the very near future.
Their performance at IndiEarth At The Park was nothing short of spectacular.
Filter Coffee live at IndiEarth At The Park
“It was super sound and an amazing vibe – truly a great initiative. I hope every organiser in the country pays this much attention to detail in sound and production, artists would walk away doubly satisfied. I mean, sound is what makes a band and makes an experience!”
Hitting up the Leather Bar stage next, was Vandana Bhalla aka Bassister, from Pune. “I play Intelligent Dance Music – I don’t know what genre it falls under because there are so many f***ing sub genres out there now – but it’s bass heavy and tribal and very percussive, limited melodies but very high highs and very low lows. I don’t know how else to describe it!” she laughs. “I have a lot of varied influences since I also used to play with a rock band – I have this metal goth part of my soul that I carry with me everywhere I go. It gets very dark, but I’m ok with that – in fact I love that. There’s also a psychedelic link to my melodies, that’s quite abstract and soulful. I do also have this love for 4/4 down with the floor, straight up minimal techno – that was the music I started DJing with.”
Her performance at The Park was a bass heavy blend of her many eclectic musical leanings and influences. “It was an absolutely an amazing experience for me,” she said after the show. “I’ve played a bunch of times in Chennai, and none of the experiences were as awesome as this. There was a lot of attention paid to detail, which is one thing that’s very important to me as sound engineer/producer – I’ve never experienced sound as good as it was that night. The vibe was just right! All gigs should be like that! That’s what I’ve been telling people since I got back to Bombay”.
As for future plans, Bassister’s got an EP up her sleeve, to be released in the near future. “I’ve been studying music production for a few years now, and now I feel the time is right to put my music out there — so I’m going to be releasing my EP shortly.”
Stay tuned for that — and for the next IndiEarth At The Park happening in July.
In the meantime, check out all the photos from the wild night here.
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