The state51 Conspiracy is releasing a compilation of previously unheard Indian electronic music dating back to the ’60s and ’70s.
Out in September, the 19-track The NID Tapes: Electronic Music From India 1969-1972 was pieced together from music that appears in the archives of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, and focuses on work by largely unknown composers such as Atul Desai, Jinraj Joshipura, I.S. Mathur, Gita Sarabhai and S.C. Sharma, who worked at India’s first electronic music studio. You can listen to one cut from the compilation, S.C. Sharma’s ‘After The War’, just below.
The release was curated by Emptyset’s Paul Purgas as part of a long-term research project which saw him travel to Ahmedabad across a number of years to explore early electronic music from India. He first helped to bring the music of the NID to wider audiences via a BBC Radio 3 documentary, Electronic India, which aired in May 2020.
Purgas also worked on an accompanying book, Subcontentinental Synthesis: Electronic Music At The National Institute Of Design, India 1969–1972, which explores the cultural and political landscape that existed around the NID studio while much of the music on the compilation was being made. Jinraj Joshipura, the last surviving composer from the NID, contributed to the book, which will be published on November 7.
The state51 Conspiracy will release The NID Tapes: Electronic Music From India 1969-1972 on September 27, 2023.
