Insights:

The difficult thing is to keep challenging yourself to keep on listening to things unknown to you, or perhaps stuff you may not be into. Too often I see a lot of regurgitation of formative influences, that fall right along ‘party’ lines so to speak: Rock musicians are only checking out rock musicians, while jazz musicians only checking out jazz musicians, and so forth. Of course, the danger is to become too eclectic and to lose focus, to lose roots and musical purpose. I feel that if the roots are strong, the branches can spread wildly, defy gravity, weather, and predators.

Having been exposed to diverse musical genres has always kept me open to learning about new musical traditions. Whether I am listening to the work of Anton Webern, or master Oud player Hamza El Din, or a ‘Kecak’ chant from Indonesia, or a Fletcher Henderson big band tune, I am always adding sounds and ideas to my own musical palette. Even though my ideas are fundamentally seated in the Indian musical tradition, I ultimately hope to be able to seamlessly combine all those influences to create a sound/identity that is totally unique, that is me in totality. That is the challenge, and the lifetime dedication to the process of listening and reacting.

Selected Musicians/Bands:

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, This Heat, Hermeto Pascoal, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Olivier Messiaen, Miles Davis, Amalia Rodriguez, Haruna Ishola, Pandit Ravi Shanker, Aretha Franklin, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Salif Keita, Muhal Richard Abrams, Grandmaster Flash,Ivo Paposov, Hassan Kassai, Faust, Machito, Alfred Schnittke, Anton Webern, Giacinto Scelsi, Bjork, Caetano Veloso, Henry Threadgill, Krzysztof Penderecki, Jimi Hendrix, Om Kolsoum, John Zorn, Kadri Gopalnath, Nick Cave, Fela Kuti, Herbert, Dalek, Simon Shaheen, Fields of the Nephilim, Ellery Eskelin, Astor Piazolla, Billie Holiday, Keith Jarrett, Robert Dick, Eric Dolphy, Diamanda Galas, Baba Maal, Sam Rivers, Public Enemy, Don Cherry, Godflesh, Ornette Coleman, Dr. Octagon, Xenakis, Horace Tapscott, SugarHill Gang, Cesaria Evora, Sonny Sharrock, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Lester Bowie, Skinny Puppy, Pharoah Sanders, Morton Feldman, Bob Marley, Peter Gabriel, Squarepusher, El Cameron, Albert Ayler, Kanyakumari, Min Xiao Fen, John McLaughlin, Current 93, Booker Little, Coil, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Autechre, Sonic Youth, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Shivkumar Sharma, Charles Ives, Psychic TV, Test Department, Ray Charles, Subhumans UK

Current Listening (Updated Frequently): What's new in the iPOD (classic) ?!:

Juana Molina Un Dia

O'Leary/Kang/Van Der Schyff Zemlya

Bat For Lashes Fur And Gold

Bedouin Soundclash Root Fire

Busta Rhymes Genesis

Kimmo Pohjonen Kalmuk

Maciel Salu E O Terno Do Terreiro Na Luz DO Carbureto

Radio I-Ching The Fire Keeps Burning

The Arcade Fire Neop Bible

Burhan Ocal & The Trakya All Stars Kirlareli Il Siniri

Warsaw Village Band People's Spring

Coco De Amaro Branco Amaro Branco

Ahmed Abdul-Malik Jazz Sounds of Africa

Marnie Stern In Advance of the Broken Arm

Jonny Greenwood Soundtrack: There will be Blood

Arditti Quartet 1974 Arditti Quartet 1994

Dalek Adandoned Language

Tinariwen Aman Iman: Water is Life

eX-Girl Back to Mono Kero!

Rufus Wainwright Want Two

Ornette Coleman Beauty is a rare thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (Discs 1-6)

Branford Marsalis Braggtown

Melvins Bullhead

Badawi Clones and False Prophets

Henry Threadgill Everybody's Mouth a Book

Kreutzer Quartet Finnissy: Works for String Quartet

Nels Cline Trio Ground

Shuggie Otis Here Comes Shuggie Otis

iPOD also includes the following artists: Mystical, Liquid Liquid, El-P, The Nels Cline Singers, Siba, This Heat, Led Zeppelin,Soft Machine, Taraf De Haidouks, Tyft, Marnie Stern, Bembeya Jazz, Giacinto Scelci, Photek, Ojos De Brujo, Velma, Salif Keita, Zu, Bob Marley,Ella Fitzgerald, Dr. Octagon, Autechre, Elomar, Jamie T, Prince, Captain Beefheart, Killing Joke, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, John Coltrane, The Melvins, Radiohead, Thomas Chapin,Jimi Hendrix, Ludacris, Philip Tabane, Warsaw Village Band, Yusef Lateef, Eric Dolphy, Astor Piazolla, Faust, Miles Davis, Machito,Shivkumar Sharma,Squarepusher, The Meters, Beck,Charles Mingus, Battles, Eric B & Rakim, Abraham Salman, I-Roy, Bjork, The Bad Plus, Hukwe Zawose, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Battles, Silver Apples, Nana Vasconcelos, Joey Baron's Barondown, Los Papines, Charles Lloyd, Robert Wyatt, Steve Reid Ensemble, Tribe called Quest, Tortoise, Thomasz Stanko Quartet, Toumani Diabate, The Clash, Tabla Beat Science, Rachid Taha, Bob Moses, Test Department, Mouse on Mars, William Billings, Richard Thompson, Oumou Sangare, Gerry Hemingway, Air, Angelique Kidjo, The Cure, Elision Ensemble, Jan Garbarek, Isis, Parvathy Baul, Fourtet, Music of Sulawesi (Indonesia), Public Image Ltd, Luiz Paixao, Gnarls Barkley, Seu Jorge, Talking Heads, Scorn, Zakir Hussain, Wadada Leo Smith, The Beatles, Tikiman, Simon Shaheen, Kanyakumari, Samo, Antony & the Johnsons, David Murray, Ivo Papasov, Booker T & the MGs, Diamanda Galas, Run-D.M.C, Ethiopiques, Milton Nascimento, Claudia Quintet, Tony Allen, Kadri Gopalnath, Roots, Happy Apple, Fulton Lights, Cyro Baptista, Brazilian Girls, Bill Frisell, Baby Dodds, Wu-Tang Clan,Kaiser Chiefs, Tony Williams, Joy Division, Radio Tarifa, Renata Rosa, Panda Bear, Jonny Greenwood, Balazs Elemer Group, Mark O'Leary, Anton Fier, Shahid Parvez, Naked City, Sugarhill Gang, William Parker Violin Trio, Rollerskate Skinny, Mustafa Kandirali & Ozel Turkbas, Current 93, Burmese Traditional Music,

Drummers:

Paul Motian, Eddie Moore, Louis Hayes, Steve McCall, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Jo Jones, Ed Blackwell, Jack DeJohnette, Han Bennink, Elvin Jones, Fritz Hauser, Bob Moses, Tony Williams, Andrew Cyrille, Zigaboo Modeliste, Gerry Hemingway, Jeff ‘Tain Watts, Jim Black, Daniel Humair, Pheeroan Ak Laff, Jon Christensen, Roger Humphries, Hamid Drake, Cyro Baptista, Doudou Ndiye Rose, Susie Ibarra, Sven-Ake Johansson, Joey Baron, Nana Vasconcelos, Manu Katche, Joe Chambers, Kenny Wollesen, Mitch Mitchell, Airto Moreira, Thurman Barker, Trilok Gurtu, Denis Charles, Samuli Kosminen, Jeff Ballard, Elliot Humberto Kavee, Salif Ali (Sasho)

Indian Percussionists:

Denkanikota V.Mani, Kishan Maharaj, Mahapurush Misra, U. AhmedJan Thirakwa, Amir Hussain Khan, AllaRakha, Gurvayu Dore, Bhaktkavatsalam, T.S.Mani Iyer, SheshGopalan, Trichy Shankaran, U. Zakir Hussain, Pt. Swapan Chaudhri, Subhankar Bannerjee, Tari Khan, Shafaat Ahmed, Anindo Chatterjee, Subhen Chatterjee, Bhavani Shankar

Dance:

Kelucharan Mohapatra, David Dorfman, Bill T. Jones, Pilobolus, Pina Bausch, Sankai Juku, Merce Cuningham

Poets:

W.B. Yeats, Fernando Pessoa, Nizim Hikmet, Aime Cesare, Pablo Neruda, Anna Ahkamatova, Charles P. Baudelaire, Wislawa Szymborska, Czeslaw Milosz, Raymond Carver, Tomas Transtomer, Yehuda Amichai, Federico Garcia Lorca, Arthur Rimbaud, e.e. Cummings, Rainer Maria Rilke, Shu Ting

Artists, etc:

Henry Darger, Kara Walker, Leon Golub, Richard Serra, Francisco Goya, Paul Cezanne, Egon Schiele, Willem DeKooning, Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko, Paul Klee, Arshile Gorky, Marcel Duchamp, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Yinka Shonibare, Francisco Clemente, Tim Hawkinson, Fred Tomaselli, Cy Twoombly, Romare Beardon, Annette Messager, Ana Mendieta, Karel Appel, Jean Dubuffet

Current Reading:

Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel (1999)