I've finally taken some time to setup our new youtube channel - which you can find here:

youtube.com/indianelectronica

if you dig the beats we play on our podcasts and radio stream then you'll probably want to check out our video channel - which you can also watch through the widget on our 'videos' page - which highlights our fave vidz on youtube by 'indian electronica' artists [+ some other cool stuff too].

Check it out and post some comments - let me know if there's any videos you've found that we should mark as out favorites and get on the channel!!

Hey folks - quick update on our gig this Friday @ a place called kuki in New Delhi... its not happening!  We're trying our hardest to come up with an alternate solution the nextnight - will let you know ASAP here what evolves so watch this space and the festival page - http://www.indianelectronica.com/festival/newdelhi 

I had the pleasure of having a chat recently with the CBC's Wojtek Gwiazda for their Indo-Canadian Report; a show heard Wednesdays to Fridays across India! The interview aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/ Radio Canada International yesterday afternoon and the audio clip can be streamed on demand from their website - we'll have it on IE in the next few days as well.

Here's some info from their site:

Indo-Canadian Report for November 7, 2007 :
Indian Electronica website promotes music

Wojtek Gwiazda meets up with a Toronto DJ and web designer who promotes Indian Electronica music around the world. Qasim Virjee's website indianelectronica.com is not only a website, but a forum for musicians, a record company and the organizer of festivals in Toronto, New York, London and Mumbai.

Listen to the interview:

http://www.rcinet.ca/rci/en/dossiers/44920.shtml

http://www.thestar.com/article/250618

One thing that always shocks me is how there are always some silly fellows who want to screw up people's technology - case in point was how Indian Electronica ended up offline for the past day or so....  Apparently some hackers messed with our server company and deleted/replaced some crucial files we need for this place to work properly!!!

Luckily I had a site backup and was able to restore everything - so you should be able to login etc as normal. 

:)  phew! [yes, I'm reaching for a nice cold Leffe Brun to celebrate]

q./ 

For all of you who want to learn a little more about the music that we are so concerned with, as well as what the vision behind indianelectronica.com is, be sure to check out the new video interview I did recently - which is permanantly in the about us section.

Yikes - Adrian from Beats without Borders in Vancouver just let me know that our registration system here on the site was acting crazy... it seems like the bloody thing's been broken for like a month!!

If you've tried to register and couldn't, please accept my apologies - its all been fixed and is working again, so come join our community! :)

q./ 

So there's been a back-log of great tunes waiting to get some airtime on Indian Electronica Radio and I think we've been running the station on random-play for long enough - starting next week we'll be featuring regular timeslots of music exclusively featuring:

• the freshest unreleased underground cuts from around the world
• drum'n'bass/jungle
• old school breaks
• progressive breakbeats
• downtempo/chill-out
• dance music
• traditional/classical South Asian forms

Watch this space for an announcement - drop a line in if you have any recommendations!

q./ 

Incase you were grooving out to Indian Electronica Radio earlier and were wondering where the stream went, sorry - it'll be offline for the next couple hours while I make some wicked upgrades happen...

q. 

Those of you who are subscribers to the newsletter will know that we've been working on getting a live online radio station going full-time since this past summer.

Well, things got really busy with the festivals in 2006 but I'm proud to announce that Indian Electronica Radio is now LIVE!!!!!

For the moment, we are playing a random assortment of hundreds of artists - many of whom are independent.  Thrown into the rotation are signature DJ mixes from Asian Underground/Massive familiars as well as unknowns around the world.

Plans for the near future include letting site members upload their own music into a weekly slot for unsigned independent artists! 

You can tune into Indian Electronica Radio using WinAmp, Windows Media Player, Real, iTunes or anything else ;)  

Stay tuned by hitting up the Radio/Podcasts section of the site! :) (Excuse the pun) 

Some of you may have noticed that my Sounds of South Asia podcast series was somewhat neglected through 2006 ;)

Well, its a new year and I plan on posting a new mix to the radio/podcasts section at least once a month through '07.

Also, for the past few months, the podcasts weren't updating in iTunes but I've just fixed that - you can subscribe again to all of the podcasts we publish (signature mixes + the Sounds of South Asia) again for free - at the moment we have a total of 6 episodes and I'll be throwing a brand new one up this week.... 

I am super excited to officially announce the launch date for our 24hr radio station: its been a long time in the making but on February 1st, 2007 we flip the switch!

I will continue to host a weekly show called the Sounds of South Asia, which hopefully will be archived and continue as a series of podcasts you can roll around on the subway and bob your head to, plus, we'll be premiering a **ton** of signature mixes from DJs and producers around the world.

For those of you who receive our newsletter, you probably read this yesterday - for everyone else, here's the news... if you dig it and want to get emails from us, make sure you subscribe to the newsletter.

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How are things people? Myself, I've been busy tooling up Indian Electronica to support our growing community – with myspace-like profiles and so on; more details below but suffice it to say that if your a producer/dj/music-lover you've got even more reason to sign up today for free! 

Its an exciting time for brown people making funky beats – if you've got your ears on the BBC Asian Network you'll note that since the staff switch-up before this summer, they've been increasingly programming indo-flavored drum'n'bass, house and other electronic music forms. As well, the Asian Network itself has raised its international profile through tighter association with Radio 1; some of you may have heard about Bobby Friction and Nihal's show simulcasting on both networks now for 2 hours on Tuesdays from midnight.

Though major industry movements may be happening in the UK, we're really trying to push this music globally and are gearing up for the Indian Electronica Festival's second year!!! This Spring we'll be hitting up New York City and as of now, we've got Pathaan and Paul D Miller, aka DJ Spooky, on the Advisory Committee and will be announcing additions soon! :)

Our plan is to also take the show to Bombay towards the end of the year – those of you interested in volunteering or performing can apply online.

In peace,

If you've visited the site over the past couple of days you will have noticed the transition we've made towards being a fully-fledged online community. What this means is that you can now connect with other music heads around the planet to collaborate on new tunes or check out new beats that people have created!

Right there on the front page you can now see the most recently signed up members who've uploaded photos and jump to their profiles! Also, throughout the site we feature random profiles – so once you've signed up people can access you from anywhere on the site.

• Let people know who you are by filling in a bio with links to your website, myspace etc AND your own gallery of photos!
• See who's viewed you and jump straight to their profile
• Drop comments on other member's profiles
• Post messages in the forum that automatically get listed on your profile
• Keep track of your buddies on the site by adding them as your friends!
• Search for new friends into whatever you are - filter by DJ, Producer, Music Lover and more!

Some of you may remember that we used to have some music videos here on the site.  Though I love seeing visual intererpretations of music, it was a bit taxing on our system to host them, but we've come up with a solution!

Announcing... [drumroll]... the Video Vault! Thanks to youtube, we're able to dish up a bunch of videos here on Indian Electronica again!  Expect more to be added soon and if you find anything cool people might want to check out, send us an email and we can throw it in the vault!

Right now in the vault, you can check out some great music videos plus live footage from parties and concerts - like this little clip from our festival in London this past summer:

Just incase anyone's looking for it, our record club signup system is being worked on a bit and should be offline for a week or so.

If you're interested in signing up - which will get you regular shipments of great CDs and promotional material in the post, drop us a line.

q./ 

Hey Guys,

Quick note: some of you might've been frustrated with the improvements we've been making to the site lately - namely, the comments feature constantly disappearing etc.  Well fear not - I've just souped up the commenting system and we're open for business...

...that's right: you can now (really easily) write comments on news/blog articles/reviews/interviews/etc... !

There, I've said my piece, now what do you think? :)

q./