Arjun Vagale: Jalebee Got Typecasted

Vagale takes a break from his electronic dance group, will release a new solo EP next week

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November 16, 2012

Arjun Vagale

Arjun Vagale’s new moniker Re:Focus suggests where the DJ and producer’s career graph is pointed. “I’m on a solo trip right now,” says Vagale, who co-founded Jalebee Cartel, one of the biggest electronica acts in the country. “Jalebee got typecasted into playing one particular style of music. It was one sound and because we got a lot of success with it, it was everything we played. It reached a level when I missed the underground sound that we (the band) started out with.” Vagale’s solo EP attempts to tap into just this sound. “Currently, everyone in the band is exploring their own thing. Maybe in a year or two years from now we’ll do something with Jalebee Cartel,” he adds.Â

Vagale’s upcoming techno EP, Disjointed Sequence, features some “weirder and deeper techno”, very different from the band’s sound. Comprising two originals and two remixes, Vagale started work on the four-track EP when he was in Berlin last year. The EP’s title track has two remixes to its credit ”“ one by Swiss producer Dan NoÃ«l and the other by German producer, Egon Carter. “I have been following Dan and I’ve always liked his stuff so it was great when Hummingbird [the Berlin-based techno music label which will launch Vagale’s EP] suggested we work together. Both of them have given the track a totally different treatment.” While NoÃ«l’s remix lends it a slow percussive groove mix, Carter, who had a chance meeting with Vagale at a club in Berlin, adds a richer texture to the track. Vagale says that the original version of ”˜Disjointed Sequence’ is an experiment with dubstep. “It’s a genre that I’ve recently become interested in. Some of it I like, some I just can’t stand. So the song is my interpretation of dubstep.”

“Voltaic,” which clocks in at 5.19 minutes, is a downtempo techno track that also makes its debut on this EP. “It’s a melodic track that I produced in 45 minutes. For me, music making is very organic”” it’s all about putting down a feeling rather than finding a melody and working around it,” says Vagale. Earlier this month, at Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Pune, Vagale offered a preview of these songs. From the response he got, Vagale is happy taking a whole new direction. “’Voltaic’ was my last track and it had 6,000 people going crazy,” he says.

Disjointed Sequence releases digitally via iTunes and Beatport from November 21^st

Hear “Disjointed Sequence” here:

Megha Mahindru