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`House' of their own, online
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DJs Tuhin Mehta and Shane Mendonsa have come up with India's first House music label on the Internet
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TUNEFUL TWOSOME Tuhin Mehta and Shane Mendonsa
Never say never. Especially now.
In a world where barriers of geography, language and technology are being swept away by the World Wide Web, anybody with a tune in his head can create music. Provided, of course, he has talent and the determination to keep going.
"You have ideas in your head, but can't play an instrument? It doesn't matter," says DJ Tuhin Mehta. "You can do everything on a computer today... The Internet is a complete leveller. It knocks down all barriers. That's why we chose it."
Tuhin and Shane Mendonsa (the son of Loy Mendonsa of Shankar/ Ehsaan/ Loy fame) recently created the House music record label, "Brutal By Birth" and released two singles under their artiste name Brute Force: "Kill The Bass" and "Softer Louder".
The country's first House music label, "Brutal By Birth" (www.brutalbybirth.com) was made possible thanks to the Internet.
For starters, Tuhin and Shane work in two different cities. Shane's a full time producer and Tuhin has a hectic job. So they work all day, and then sit at their computers all night to create.
"We produce online. We conceptualise, discuss project files... " says Tuhin, adding that they start work on a project and then send it "back and forth, back and forth, back and forth till its complete." And in spite of not physically being in the same place, their music's never suffered. "If he generates an idea, I can put it down... translate it into audio."
After working like this for a while, the duo felt it was time to step into the public domain. "Everywhere you look on the net, you see Electronic Dance Music — typically House — being created, but not one of the artistes is based out of India." Although India's been a muse, Indians based abroad have created music, and trace music even has roots in the electronic dance music (EDM) experimented with on Goa's Anjuna Beach, when it came to house labels from here, there was very little.
So the two DJs created "Kill the Bass" and on April 1 this year it went online, on Juno, the world's largest online dance music store, and three other sites, so people could buy and download the track. "The point was not to make money — the point was to educate people... to put India on the map. There are still people who think of India as the land of camels, elephants and whatever... We need to make an impact globally." After all, this country has a number of talented DJs who are "on the cutting edge of sound."
"The days of meeting people and marketing yourself are all gone," says Tuhin, discussing how it's become so much easier to reach the rest of the world. "Blogs, mailing lists, chat transcripts... you can push your music by having it on a forum, by sending it to DJs for free." For instance, they have now announced a remix contest on Submerge, the biggest Indian site for EDM, where DJs are given a portion of "Kill The Bass" to rework.
"We've got emails from Sweden, Germany... Just friends who have told other friends," smiles Tuhin, adding, "Taucher is probably Germany's biggest and best known DJ... and one day it was on his playlist... " This is how word spreads. And word-of-mouth is their strongest marketing tool.
"It's not like one day, ka-boom, we're rich," he says, "It's a slow process... But we'd much rather grow in small steps than grow big, crash and burn."
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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