All you producers who haven't checked in with Sony in a while - it seems they've been focusing a little more in recent years on digital music production (re: buying Sonic Foundry - makers of Acid and Soundforge).

I haven't checked out their Loops but a sale's on that I thought to twig you all onto: 25% off for a limited time @ their online store...

England-based downtempo funksters Trick Baby are releasing their second album in a couple of weeks and you can already peep a pretty groovy video  for the album's single, 'Fighter' that VJ Mox worked on (he's done lots of stuff with Nunjatune artists like Coldcut and Amon Tobin).

Wow!

check out the show from 2AM GMT this Sunday for a broadcast of my very special 11 track 20 minute World Odyssey Mix; exclusively recorded live for Pathaan to broadcast on the BBC Asian Network this Sunday!  I also did a short interview with Pathaan which will be aired alongside the mix... :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/pathaansmusicalrickshaw/ 

You can of course listen anywhere in the world online - live or on-demand for the next week! 

The Shiva Soundsystem is a fantastic bunch of instrumentalists, DJs and producers in London who've been making and promoting music for a number of years.

You might be familiar with Nerm, SSS' co-founder from the Asian Network - after offering us his first episode, he's taking a back seat this time round for their second series of podcasts and offering airtime to a host of other DJs and producers to spin selections of tunes which have inspired them over the years.

Once at their site, click into navigate>audio downloads from the top-right and you'll find yourself smiling at being able to download zips of the old podcasts plus a couple of mixed tapes and Series 2 - which has just begun...     

Thanks for the beats Shiva peops - we love you! :p 

Peter Gabriel's Real World Records are offering a pretty cool prize to the winning remixer of a new track by Joi.

Firstly - the track; it called 'What you Are' and is off of Joi's newest release - the third album which is to be released this month and is called 'Without Zero.' Its a great number with Bengali and English vocals, a 4/4 rhythm that rides slowely at just 110BPM - think Kwaito styles...

My opinion is that there is tons of room on this track to innovate - Farook has done a wonderful job of perfectly balancing lots of elements and including some touching vocal harmonies that would be a blast to play with... I'll be working on some versions of this myself and can't wait...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the prize: a day @ Real World Studios, to work in the Big Room - recording your own work!  Wow!  To start salivating head over to Real World Studio's site and check out the photos... 

Outcaste Records' veteran producer Mo Magic has just released a fantastic abum on his own imprint, Asian Dawn Recordings.  Its available online from Itunes and a couple of other places - the easiest to use and preview the music seems to be Beat Port

Its definately a drum'n'bass album and will likely be getting rinsed soon on the Asian Network as well as tru-skool d''n'b shows/networks - keep and eye out for an IE review soon! 

If you're an old fashioned bloke or lass and want an actual CD you can pump in your car or over the PA at your cousin-bother's wedding, head over to http://www.momagic.com/ or  http://www.asiandawn.co.uk/ to order a disc online.

Here's another head-scratcher for all you indo beats fanatics- do you know what the track is in this Cingular blackberry ad?

(Thanks to Travis or asking this via Indian Electronica Radio) 

Some of you may know that Sony's acidplanet.com had a competition recently for the best remix of Karsh Kale's Manifest - its the first track off of Broken English, his newest album.

I took a look at remixing it in early summer and well, trashed the versions I had cooked up because it was bloody tough - all the samples were tiny snippets and short of effecting the vocals to stretched out madness and layering them with dhol (which is in the original), I kind of ran out of ideas.

nSpaas won the competition with a mix that was well received, I haven't heard it yet because I've forgotten my password to acidplanet and well, that's no excuse... but anyway - you can check out all the versions submitted online and if they aren't enough for you, venerable San Fran label Six Degrees has just released an EP of the track which you can grab for 3 bucks!

While you're at 6d you might as well also pick up their newest compilation offering - its called 'Eden' and promises 11 'global chill' tracks for you to get your lovin onto.

q./ 

For those of you who didn't catch this on Sepia Mutiny, Boy Mongoose, a new cartoon/musi-group are dropping rec this holiday season with their debut album 'Christmas in Asia Minor' - I haven't heard the full album but they've covered 12 Days of Christmas and done a hilarious vid for it.. Check this:

Could they be the brown Gorillaz? :) 

Some of you out there may know by know that I'm a web site producer, well, in doing my virtual rounds today I discovered an interesting video ad produced by the folks at Apple - check it out.

Basically, the ad features a couple of folks from 37 signals (uber-simple web-based software company) going on about how they love Apple and how its simpicity inspires what they do.

Interesting to note for us here is the soundtrack - check it out and let me know if you can recognise that track... funky little indo medley with some tabla and wafty male vocal in the background.

Whoever posts the correct name and artist/composer of the track in a comment below gets a compilation courtesy of us and Six Degrees.

q./ 

Our friends at Six Degrees Records in San Francisco (we co-present Dishoom once a month w/them), are putting all their 'South Asian' titles on discount at the moment.

You can get $2 off of artists such as Karsh Kale,  the MidiVal Punditz, Cheb i Sabbah (yes, we know he's Algerian), (selwa), and more!

You can see the full list of discounted titles at their online store and well, um, buy them! :)

Ultramixer is yet another software solution for budding MP3 DJs looking to bust cuts on their laptops etc...

Now offering a free, basic and advanced option, they're all bundled into the same version when you download it but activation keys will unlock certain features (like real time effects and auto-mixing) depending on how much cash you fork out for it.

 Only the free version is currently available at the moment, and its worth checking out: http://ultramixer.com

Note, if you're just getting started with software DJing, you might also want to check out  Mixxx - an Open Source prog.  Ah, and for all you granola eating hippy types, check out this site, just for kicks yaar ;) : http://www.openjay.org/

We'll be making a more official statement about this sometime soon but I've just flipped the switch earlier this evening and (FINALLY!) we've got a 24hr, 7 day/week, 365 day per year Internet Radio Stream up and running at 96Kbps!!!!!

 Actually, I'm really really excited about this as we can now give you a true sampling of the music that's being written about on this website, plus showcased at our international music festivals! 

At the moment, I've got things setup so that you can click into the radio area of the site  and see what's playing, then launch the stream in the player of your choice (winamp, itunes etc) - easy as pie.

Like I said, a more in-depth announcement is to follow, for now - all you savvy types reading this, check it out and let me know what you think yeah?! 

Generally, you can use the following URL: http://indianelectronica.serverroom.us:7832/listen.pls 

q./ 

Just in time for December's end-of-year festivities, the Bombay High Court slapped a temporary restraining order on five clubs in the trendy suburb of Juhu, banning them from playing music for which they have no licence. The clubs—Vie Lounge Bar, Club Escape, Sun-n-Sand, J49 and Four Seasons—have been charged with violating rules by playing music protected by copyright. The move came in response to a suit filed by a copyright-protection organisation representing large music companies, including Sony BMG, Crescendo and Magnasound.

Lawyers defending the club-owners have refuted the charge and hearings will continue in January. The campaign is not restricted to Juhu—about 200 clubs in Mumbai have been issued letters directing them to purchase a music-playing licence, costing the equivalent of $1,000-1,500 for each special event. Expect clubs to charge higher entry fees.

All we know is that our web production company, Design Guru, is building them something special at the moment and until it launches at http://www.indochill.com, we're hosting their newsletter - so sign up at their site or directly on Indian Electronica (click here) to stay up to date on this cool new record label!

The two will offer digital downloads of Asian artists, with infrastructure provided by Napster and the shopfront by Club Asia. The radio station will also advise on Napster on what music to feature and artists to plug.

Darragh Jye

Haunted Dancehall is a tune to bring peace to your stereo and take you out of the madness, into dream state, and for 4 minutes 45 seconds life shall be good again.

The first single from KU's forthcoming album titled 'From Sinners To Angels’ shows that the standard for quality British music is alive and well...

Damn the Yam: Gujurati Yam Boy

The two west London producers, DJ Asif and Martti Sewell, have put together Digital Asia, the album they refer to as 'an adventure into eastern electronica, Arabic beats with the dhol, sitar and tabla fusing into house, breakbeat, drum&bass, and funk'. The album is released on their own label: Just Play records.

Riding high on their popular club single, also titled Digital Asia, the album includes the electro beats of Threads of Identity and the hypnotic, dark house rhythms of Desert Queen . All three tracks were played listed on Radio 1's Bobby and Nihal top ten chart.

In case you're not familiar with these chaps - FNB is a crew out of England that's been doing well with their blend of Electronic music that combines tempos and sub-genres with skill to great effect! The group has been getting rotation on both the BBC's Asian Network as well as Radio1's Bobby and Nihal Presents - the UK's quintessential weekly urban South Asian radio show.

• For more information about these guys, check out founding member Asif Gillani's Profile!
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