MI21

MI21

In a project led by world champion turntablist DJ Tigerstyle, I assisted in preparing the show as well as writing two tracks for the album and live show. The show was designed as a live AV show with the new score played along to a version of the film edited by Renderghost, and performed by DJ Tigerstyle, myself, and Drummer David Shaw.  One of the tracks that I wrote for the show (Metamorphosis) was featured in the 2009 WOMEX official CD.

The classic Indian film Mother India was re-scored and re-edited for the modern age and for live performance. The project was conceived and commissioned by Indy Hunjan of Kala Phool and sold out two UK and international tours, to extremely diverse audiences, playing to over 35,000 people, filling venues and festivals in New York, Singapore, Australia, including London’s South Bank Centre and Sydney’s Royal Opera House.

The critical response was equally as effusive, with the Guardian, among others saying; “MI21 is a powerful and moving glimpse of a challenging, unwieldy masterpiece”. Similarly, The Telegraph singled out MI21 as one of its “10 things” to see that summer.

I returned to MI21 in 2022 as part of a research project in a collaboration between Kala Phool and Birmingham City University and funded by The Arts Council.  For this new Iteration of the project, I wrote two more tracks to scenes from the film (The Call to All and The Great Rebuild) and engaged in research of the original score of the film by the great Indian film composer Naushad Ali.  This comprised of an essay about the how the original score was made and a transcription of the music for one of the scenes from the film.

This new Iteration of MI21 was multi-disciplinary and also featured composer Nimrita Kaur, Digital Artist Photographer and Videographer Pritt Kalsi, Visual Artist Dilwara Begum, Poet Rupinder Kaur, Photographer and Archivist Anand Chhabra, and Jeweller Anisha Parmar.