Note: Links for purchase and reivews at bottom of this post.
I’m super happy to announce the official release of my “Moner Alo” EP featuring Anoura via Dutty Artz. It’s been a tremendous journey, taking Bengali language music around the world the last two and a half years, and this time I make a stop in Africa – more specifically Sierra Leone – for the second song in the trilogy of work I’m presenting about being young and Bengali, fusing global sounds.
Nihal blessed me with a worldwide debut via BBC Radio One:
I went through a tremendous heart break last year. As some of you recall, I tried my best to put it into words and over music… It sucked. Although I had already painted some words about the matter, it wasn’t until I sat down with my roommate, Anoura, that the perfect expression came to me via a frank and sad conversation we had shared. She was on the outside looking in, and encouraged me to speak my heart from the perspective of love, not from the pain I was feeling. The perfect words weren’t in English. They were in Bangla and Spanish.
The original version of the track is produced by Chief Boima and Oro11, who released the instrumental previously as “Talking Drum” under the name Banana Clipz (also included on the iTunes release). A lot of people have asked why there is so much auto-tune in the song, and my answer is that Geko Jones had been playing A LOT of the new music coming out of Nigeria in our studio at the time of the recording, and in terms of style, I wanted to emulate the effect that I was hearing. Seeing that contemporary African music does use the effect quite heavily, I also wanted to create something which would fit in with the music which is popular at the moment in Africa, adding my special Bengali twist, and a bit of Spanish, via Anoura, for good measure. I was asking myself, “Is it possible to convey heart break even through auto tune?” I think the answer is: Yes. What do you think?
Geko Jones and I then quickly went to work on a video concept and we were off to the races, as we switched out camera man roles all around New York. WIthin 48 hours of me editing all of our collected footage, we had a video. What’s up with the shots of Anoura in red? We’ve left the interpretations up to the viewers. This is the first project Geko and I have released to the public under our collaborative moniker, Code Switchers. There’s more. We’ve been holding back, aiming to get this one out before anything else comes your way.
I logged onto iTunes to a pleasant surprise, finding that the EP was categorized under “New and Noteworthy”. It’s a good feeling…this being “noteworthy”. Nabin (my name) translates roughly to “always new” or “always young” or “forever youthful” (so TOUGH finding the correct translations into English) – so that part I’m sorta used to 
As if all of that weren’t enough, my friend Dub Sharma in India sent us a tremendous remix of the tune which didn’t make it over in time to release on the EP. For that reason, we’ve been working with Generation Bass to get the mix out as an exclusive this week so you guys can hear it!
I really hope you enjoy the release. Anoura, Chief Boima, Oro11, Sonora, Ashwin “AKS” Subramanian, Dub Sharma and I *literally* put our hearts into it.
Love,
Nabin
Links:
Purchase “Moner Alo” via iTunes
Generation Bass Dub Sharma Remix Exclusive
Sounds and Colours review
Urban Asian review
Sony India’s Zomba.in review
Update: Looks like the release made the front page of the Electronic section in iTunes as well…
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