Listen to Flash of Light, you will like it,” suggests Nikhil Chinappa. The sound is a modernised version of retro-disco, which in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) jargon would be called nu disco. A forlorn female voice utters ‘flash’ in a gasp and then sings You won’t be coming down. The song is such that one wouldn’t mind showering to it or just grooving to it on the dance floor.
Flash of Light is one of the 32 songs Chinappa has compiled under the album Defected in the House India 2013 for Defected Records, which was recently released by Sony Music. This is Chinappa’s first compilation and comes in two CDs. On being asked how he’d describe the sound, Chinappa says, “CD 1 could be bifurcated into deep house and nu disco. These songs are languid and soulful. CD 2 could be described as main room house and as the name suggests, sounds better on a larger sound system.”
But Chinappa does not believe in labelling music. To him there are only two genres “good music and rubbish”. Digressing from saying what the music is, he says what the music is not, and that is the foot-tapping kind. “These are songs which make me happy. The sound is groovy and sexy. It puts a smile on my face and I hope it does the same to the listener,” says Chinappa, who has been in the entertainment business for over 13 years, during which he has stepped into the shoes of an MTV India mascot, a VJ, an actor and has had a successful stint as a DJ. He is also the festival director of the Sunburn music festival, Asia’s biggest EDM festival. Yet, he feels that it is not too late to put together his own compilation. “People have now woken up to EDM, although it has been around in this country for over two decades, but only in underground scenes,” says Chinappa, who sees himself as a “dance music evangelist”. His evangelism comes with a vision, “I want people to discover new sounds, which are out there but were not taken to them. This music is not mainstream. I would want non-EDM listeners and also mainstream music listeners to pick up these sounds,” he adds.
Chinappa said that he has been curating this section of the Indian music scene and would want to do a documentary on EDM in India. “EDM is enjoying great popularity here but we must carve an identity for ourselves in dance music history,” he says. “This is my philosophical and soulful purpose,” adds Chinappa. With a compilation out in the market, Chinappa has no plans of coming up with an album containing original compositions in the near future because he believes, “Music should be made by musicians and not by people sitting on keyboards and machines.”
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home / by Rushil Dutta / Pune, Sunday – June 30th, 2013
