"The King of Ghosts" Project at Fez World Sacred Music Festival 2016

Flashback to Fès World Sacred Music Festival in May 2016 for which I conceived a Homage to India with Denis Teste, my partner of ECHO Collective. Thirty established maestros and torchbearers from Kolkata, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai, Toronto, London... to highlight the living sacred heritage of India and its endless creativity!

In this framework, we invited and produced "The King of Ghosts" project - a live musical performance for the iconic film Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen by Satyajit Ray (1969) composed and performed by the sarod player Soumik Datta and the percussionist Cormac Byrne.

Here is a short film to relate the story. Music springs from encounters...

1001 thanks to Souvid Datta & Nick Atkins.

Ethnopholia TV Series, a collaboration with a Lebanese crew

Ethnopholia is a TV series designed by Abeer Nehme, a well known Lebanese singer, and her relatives. Each episode consists in discovering a musical tradition somewhere on the world map.

Here are several episodes filmed in India in 2014 and broadcasted on Al Mayadeen in 2016 and 2017 to which I contributed as a music advisor, a local project manager and even as a little character.

Thanks to my friends Soumik Datta (Baul-Fakir gaan field work) & Sougata Roy Chowdhury (classical music in Kolkata).

"Music is the purest form of art" − Rabindranath Tagore

Text reproduced from: Sadhana, the Realisation of Life, by Rabindranath Tagore - First edition. 1913, reprinted 1964

"Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one, and simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous. We seem to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible. The evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations, seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and listening to it in unceasing joy. (...)"

Bring voices back to life

Canary Records, founded by the researcher Ian Nagoski, is a newcomer to the reissued vinyl scene. Some unearthed gems including a collection of Turkish-language tracks from the early 20th century (one fourth of Columbia Records’ Turkish recordings). “To What Strange Place: The Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora, 1916-1930" was published by Tompkins Square Records in 2011.
But you will also find online: Indian classical music, Urban Greek songs of the 30's, ethnographic recordings from Southeast Asia, Brazilian folk recordings, African American gospel, Eastern European dances, Balkan folk music, Sub-Saharian acoustic guitars, etc, etc.

http://canary-records.bandcamp.com
http://canaryrecords.tumblr.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/naimkarakand/videos

"Indian Talking Machine"

Wood block print of Saraswati from Calcutta, c. 1900s.jpg

Mahadeva:Shiva…incarnation as a one man band. Woodblock print from Calcutta, 19th Century.jpg

At a point during Fall 2015, the Sublime Frequencies label will release an art book featuring two CDs of music, musings on collecting and Indian classical music, track notes and over 300 photographs of Indian 78rpm collections and ephemera.
A project by Robert Millis (a solo artist, a founding member of Climax Golden Twins, AFCGT and a frequent contributor to Sublime Frequencies). Keep your ears/eyes wide open: WICKED!