LAB 5: El-migration – Sarathy Korwar

An amalgam of modern electronic sounds with traditional spirituality – this is how Sarathy Korwar's music project can be described. Before his debut album ‘Day to Day’ was released in 2016 by legendary label Ninja Tune, the artist had been on a creative journey from the USA through India to the UK, where he presently lives and creates.

The story of the Sidi people, African citizens of India, was inspiration for Korwar's musical activity. These people had been arriving in India since the 6th century AD as sailors, merchants and mercenaries. Nowadays their descendants nurture their traditional culture, which is a mixture of Sufi mysticism expressed in singing style and polyrhythms of dense percussion parts with the characteristic sound of the malunga bow-instrument resembling a Brazilian berimbau.

The artist's compositions are a merger of jazz and Eastern sound including recordings made on the journey through the Indian state of Gujarat. Korowar will take the audience on a musical voyage through cities bathed in monsoon rain, temples bathed in sunlight and roadless tracks cutting through the tropical forests. Fresh, deep and harmonious sounds will be provided by a mix of folk, jazz and electronics.