Karsh Kale and Nucleya have replaced Sneha Khanwalkar on MTV’s Sound Trippin. The musical duo chatted with I Kaur on the use of rain, healing, strength and unity in their music
Sneha Khanwalkar may have a lot to her credit including background scores of films like Oye lucky! lucky Oye! and Gangs of Wasseypur, but the music director shot to fame with MTV’s popular music show Sound Trippin. However this Sunday, you won’t be greeted by her. The young musician has been replaced by Indian-American fusion music composer Karsh Kale and EDM artiste Nucleya. For the remaining four episodes, both of them will be seen composing the unique music. Karsh told us, “We have already worked on these four episodes. They were shot with three themes in mind — Healing in Dharamshala, rain in Shantiniketan and strength and unity in Kerala. In Kerala we shot in two places — Allopee and Kochi for two episodes.”
Though Karsh is excited about the show, this style of composing music is not new to him. “The concept of the show seemed somewhat familiar to me as I have spent my career over the past 20 years, traveling the world and collaborating with artists from all walks of life and genres ranging from classical to folk artists, tribal to pop and jazz icons and many more. So the psychology involved in meeting disparate people and cultures and finding the commonality in all has always been at the center of what I do. Using technology in conjunction to the human element has also been the heart of my music,” he said.
He added that his collaboration with Nucleya made things simpler. “When they told me that Nucleya would be my collaborator, I was excited as I feel he has a very fresh approach to production as well as having a great musical relationship with the folk and common sounds of India. I was very thrilled at the prospect of what we would do together,” he said.
Nucleya shared his experience of working with Karsh. “He is an amazing musician. He has a very open mind and he likes my music as well which made it extemely easy to work with him. Above all that I think I got to learn a lot from him.”
What was your best experienceIJ “It was in Dharamshala. The idea was to make a track of sounds of internal and external healing. We met people who do external sound healing. So we recorded the sounds and spoke to them about what their approach was in order to get a better ideas,” said Nucleya.
The music through the show will be completely different from the trademark tunes of Karsh or Nucleya. Karsh agreed. “The goal is not to create the same magic but to create a whole new magic. Nucleya and I are involved in each piece not only as sound collectors but also as composers, as musicians, as producers and arrangers. So we can follow the idea from its infancy to the final song. This kind of creative control is how we plan to push things in different directions,” he said.
However, there were challenges too. He added, “First and foremost when working in such an intensive work schedule and environment, collaborators must get along on a human level in order to make music. We needed a lot of time to get to know each other, make each other laugh, talk about our lives and share our musical sensibilities. Once those barriers were broken, the flow of ideas started pouring out. We recognised each other's strengths and weaknesses and worked together to create something that was bigger than either of us individually.”