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Buddha rocks here
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The music that DJ Ravin makes is really a balancing act even if it is supposed to transcend
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DJ Ravin: `I have to respond to what an audience wants.' — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
RAVIN'S RIGHT. You don't need to go to college to have music touch your soul. To listen. To learn. Different chords touch different souls for no particular reason. Intuition perhaps — the instinct that tells you that you had it in you for tunes. Ravin was thrown far away from the isles of Mauritius at age nine into the heart of Europe's culture high where exotica gets its due. Paris. Buddha, we know, smiles in Pokharan.
Rocking in Paris
But in Paris, he rocks. At a bar. Five to 10 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, DJ Ravin takes people from and into the world of transcendence to the world of rock through the notes of Arabia. He's been taking them into that world for 20 years. "If I'm in Paris and not at home, it means I'm at the Buddha bar".
Ravin was in town to give folks here a renewed dose of Buddha Bar music at Le Meridien's F-Bar. Quick gulps of whiskies mixed in cola, soda, sprite and energiser went down well and set the stage for a mild high. An hour into the night after soft, slow rhythmic music, the beats came in, first slow, then heavy. Strumming next. Went well with the beats. Then violin, Rajasthani folk tunes, Indipop and the techno. And then the Black Sabbath came in from nowhere. That's when they all got dancing. Animated chats about who's doing what, who's dating whom and what a break's like from work.
Ravin tells us that Buddha Bar music is all about world music. A collection of different instruments from the guitar to the sitar, and a collection of different melodies. "It is eclectic. There's Arabic, Greek, Polish, Italian and of course Indian. I travel with this music all around the world. I tell stories through my music, stories of different cultures."
Why Buddha in Paris?
"It is exotic. It's ethnic. A Buddha icon is fashionable in a bar. And music around it. The Buddha Bar there is a modern temple. And the place is Zen."
But it is precisely because it is zen, that Buddha is serene, calm, transcendental, that it is Buddha Bar?
"Actually, yes. That could also be why it's called Buddha Bar. I'd not thought of that."
And if Buddha is all this, why the non-transcendental strains? The intention is transcendental, but the performance turns out otherwise. The meditative travels to and through pop, rock, and metal. And in a city such as Bangalore it better — Hindi, English or Arabic. If it is world music, and is one whole piece that puts together music from different cultures, shouldn't one play the entire piece everywhere?
"Ideally, yes. But I also have to respond to what an audience wants. When I played some Turkish tunes in Istanbul, people there loved it. In Moscow too, when I played classical stuff, they loved it. So, I get to play to some part of what people like of their own culture and some part from other cultures. I have to look at the mood of the city."
There could be exceptions — transcendence could work more in some places, less in others. And some kinds of music could be transcendental anyway. The mantras could work great in India and best when mixed with folk, alap and rock. A.R. Rahman can make magic out of this.
Balancing act
Ravin has mastered the art of balancing the transcendental and the non-transcendental and has DJed all over the world, starting off in a Paris music store. He has performed in Italy, Greece, Poland, all over Europe really, and now in India. In Paris, he began at private parties and at the well-known French club, The Rex, where he turned resident DJ on weekends and weekend parties, including the Wiz Bombino parties "with the help of Laurent Meuer from Le Bay". That party was where he met Claude Challe, the owner of "Les Bains Douches", a well-known Parisian nightspot in the Eighties. That is where he got into electronic fusion and world music. With Claude Challe, he produced albums such as The Flying Carpet, Loverdose, and Nirvana Lounge.
Ravin arrived at the Buddha Bar in 1997. In collaboration with Claude, he conceptualised the first two Buddha Bar compilations. Ravin went on the produce Buddha Bar III, then IV, V, and VI on his own. He is on to the seventh. His Buddha Bar music, mystical offerings to Buddha, has sold 500,000 copies so far.
PRASHANTH G.N.
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