Friday, December 10, 2010

Sulk Station

A very good friend of mine, Sahil Kher, reviewed them in Haiku. Speaks a lot more than I ever can.

Girl, guy, computer
Voice haunts, wobbly bass dovetails
Beauty in fusion.

Anyway, on to my shit. Sulk Station is a downtempo electronica mellowdrama (they made that word up, I swear) duo from Bangalore. Ordinarily, I don't listen to this kind of music, but they were opening for The Bicycle Days at a free entry gig, which I couldn't pass up, cheap as I am. The evening turned out to be one of those not-so-rare cases where I enjoyed the opening act more than the band-being-opened-for. Of course, I say opening because TBD played later, longer and is generally a better known band.


I personally don't believe that a dude making sounds and effects from his computer, and a girl singing to that constitutes a band, but if you can call them a band, then the band consists of:
Tanvi Rao: Vocals (and keyboards on a couple of songs)
Rahul Giri : Macbook.

Both of them are very good at what they do. Girl's got a lovely singing voice, very moody and haunting. Dude's got some very wobbly basslines going, which is great. I mean, some dirty fucking basslines. The dirty, wobbly effects on the basslines remind me of dubstep (my favourite subgenre of electronic music), except it's not that dark or anything, it's just trippy, and not THAT dirty. The girl's pretty damn cute too, but the dude doesn't look like anyone I want to fuck with. I would've included a photo of the duo here, but given the last sentence, it just seems rather stalkerish, so I'm just going let this one pass. And put up some artwork from their page.

Love the concept right?

Their music also incorporates Hindustani classical influences, with a couple of songs having Hindi lyrics. I mean stuff like "Maathe ki bindya bikhar gayi...". And it's very well done. A lot of bands try to fuse Indian  classical with their chosen genre of music like say rock, but they end up being more classical and less rock, which totally fucks it up for me. But this is definitely more electronica, but you can still notice the Indian classical elements whenever they decide to show up.

They have four songs up on Soundcloud:

1.) Contentment: 
This one's my favourite of the four. The others start out without a funky bassline in the back, but this one gets right into it. So it's on the wobble right from the beginning. Vocals are very haunting here.  Like if this sound asked me to do something, I'd follow that command. Very gripping. Three and a half minutes into the song it starts building up, at 3:43 it enters full trippy mode. Like the song's given you enough time to smoke your joint, now you get down and enjoy this shit.

 Contentment by Sulk Station 

2.) Splendor: 
This track comes a very close second to Contentment, the only reason Contentment wins is because it's wobbling from the beginning. Splendor, like the remaining two, takes its time. Kinda shy that way, but once it warms up, it's really very friendly. This is one of the ones I mentioned earlier about having Indian classical influences. Vocals are predominantly Hindi, with lyrics such as, "Mora tann kaanpe, mora mann kaanpe...". In fact it kinda sounds like it's devoted to Morari (Krishna). Don't get turned off cause it sounds devotional though, I'm sure you've never heard a devotional song with a dirty bassline. If my guess is correct, and if the song really is devoted to Krishna, then it's easily the trippiest prayer I ever heard. Again, four and a half minutes into the song, it gets into full trip mode. Continuing the Morari chant to an ever wobbling bassline, fucking brilliantly done. Just simply amazing.

 Splendor by Sulk Station 

3.) Wait
Compared to the others, this is a rather weak song. The bass here is different, it's more conventional, the sort of thing you could do with an actual bass guitar. People would probably appreciate it, but the wobbly bass is what drew to me to the band, so I'm not particularly thrilled about that. The vocals however, are the most incredible here. This is definitely a more vocal based track, as opposed to an effects one. My favourite part is the last minute and a half, where she repeatedly sings "Till you appear", with a noticeable overlap. There's even noticeable scratches when their signature 'full trip' moment arrives, at 3:25.

 wait by Sulk Station 

4.) Bindya
This is the fourth and final song uploaded on Soundcloud. And this has even more Indian classical elements to it than Splendor. Even the vocals sound like they're more classical oriented than Sulk Station oriented. The drum loops that begin from 2:10 onwards say the same story, very classical sounding. Not as downtempo as the other three this time. Same for the general atmospheric effects going on in the back. The bassline however, kicking in 3:17 stays groovy. Although, if you were looking for it, you'd find the classical touch here also. Good song, kinda long though.
I kinda broke from my format here, cause well, all this electronica music sounds much the same to me. I had to hear the songs over and over to try and tell the difference. Anyway, I highly recommend that any reader listen to Contentment and then Splendor. Preferably when decently stoned. That's when you'd really love it. But even in sobriety, it's pretty fucking good.

Who will like it? Anybody looking to chill. Fans of a haunting voice. Fans of dirty fucking basslines. Stoners.
Who will not like it? People who need their songs to be fast-paced. People who need their songs to be heavy. People who don't appreciate the female voice for singing (I know some of those, yeah.)
Where to find them? Soundcloud.
Lyrics? Nope. Not really required either.
Free Download? Bindya and Wait for free download at Soundcloud. Contentment can be downloaded here:

The songs seem to follow a general format, they start out all slow and mellow and stuff, and one by one "instruments" join the singing, then the song builds for a bit, and eventually we reach what I've been calling the 'full trip mode'. Really does give you enough time to smoke a J and settle down by the time it breaks. So, if you're impatient, you can just skip to the beginning of the 'full trip mode' for any song, and you'll still have a good time.

Oh, and I saw them live earlier tonight, so I thought I might as well add a little note on their live performance. And well, I honestly thought that they'd sound different from their recordings, cause well you know the vocals don't sound very possible. But then, how different would a recording of computer generated sounds be from when you just play it in front of a bunch people? Either way, it was absolutely mind-blowing, cause the bass was pumping from the speakers, and the voice was very haunting. Man, the experience was just something else. And it was super trippy too, great time to collapse in a bean bag and enjoy a beer. I just wish I was high at the time. The setlist was ‎Spaces, Stranger, Piya, Contenment, Splendor, Bindya and Wait. I haven't heard the first three songs, but they said they'd upload them soon, so let's hope they do. And I'll edit this page as and when a new song comes out. 


Paragraph added later:
I recently came across a couple of their live videos from the aforementioned night of Wait, and Contentment . The quality is very good, both video and sound, it might as be their official video. However, for the Wait video you'll have to skip to 1:34, there's some random crap before that. And for some reason, Contentment didn't work on my comp.
So, Wait: http://www.vimeo.com/18161991
Contentment: http://www.vimeo.com/16361400

General Links:


Note: When I say dirty bassline, it's a complimentary word. This dubstep term for a wobbly bassline, sounds awesome.

Like this? Well, then there isn't much in this blog for you, but still try:
Supervibe

Q: Who wrote this shit? A: at
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