How Ricky Kej’s Work with Celebrated Sound Engineers Led to his Third Grammy Nomination

At the upcoming 65th edition of the Grammy awards, Ricky Kej and Stewart Copeland’s album Divine Tides is actually competing with records by Christina Aguilera, The Chainsmokers and more in Best Immersive Audio Album category.

It’s one of the things that genuinely excites Kej, who has previously been nominated in – and won – in the Best New Age Album category of the Grammys for Winds of Samsara and Divine Tides as well. “It was not a genre category [we’re nominated in]. It got nominated for Best Immersive Album across genres. [It] is so diverse and also an opportunity to have Indian music stand up against mainstream western music. It’s great to be a part of that and I’m excited to see the outcome,” Kej adds.

After working on the mixes with a few engineers for Divine Tides, Copeland and Kej decided to take their time to find the right fit and in that process, the album’s new immersive audio version was once again eligible to be nominated for a Grammy. They eventually found mix engineer Eric Schilling and immersive mix producer Herbert Waltl, who share the nomination at the 65th Grammy Awards for Divine Tides with Copeland and Kej. He says, “We were still in the recording process when they [Schilling and Waltl] stepped into the project. They brought a lot of ideas in the recording process itself, like using different kinds of microphones and capturing the ambience of the instruments in a different angle.”

It helps that the duo chose people who had an immense track record at the Grammys. Mix engineer Schilling has won twice – for work on the super deluxe edition of blues legends Derek & The Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in 2012 and Alicia Keys’ album Alicia in 2022. Immersive mix producer Waltl has previously won for his involvement as producer for Ray Charles’ posthumous album Genius Loves Company in 2005, for Album of the Year and Best Surround Sound Album.

Kej, for his part, calls Schilling “one of the most celebrated sound engineers in the world.” He adds, “Waltl is constantly is striving to create new and new technology when it comes to audio immersion and auto interaction. He’s quite a legend at that.” Together, they used Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound technology format. A challenge they then faced was delivering it to listeners on platforms in this format. The immersive audio mix of Divine Tides eventually reached Tidal, Deezer and Amazon Music.

As someone who’s constantly in touch with the technological developments in sound, Kej says the dissemination method of listening to the music itself is extremely important. Formats and delivery of the music aside, the composer-producer believes very strongly that an immersive mix should “only be attempted if the creativity of the music demands it.” He adds, “Just doing an immersive mix of a pop song or any other song just because you want to have an immersive mix will never work. In fact, it will be detrimental to the format itself. Because sometimes a song sounds fantastic in a stereo mix, but it may not translate well into an immersive mix.”

When he won for Divine Tides with Copeland earlier this year, he told Rolling Stone India that he was “going to continue promoting this album for a very long time” and that’s clearly reflected in this nomination. He’s attending the 65th Grammys in February 2023 in Los Angeles (“Whether I was nominated or not, the plan was definitely to attend. I’ve already booked my hotel rooms,” he says).

Most of 2022 has been spent touring (or “revenge touring,” as Kej terms the pandemic-related phenomenon) across 13 countries and over 50 shows. “There are a couple of more countries and more concerts to go after this,” he says.

Outside of his albums, Kej is returning to composing music for films for the first time in 18 years. “I wanted to work on movies which have got a very strong message of social impact and movies that speak to me,” he says. While there were a few documentary-style features like Wild Karnataka which had music by Kej, he’s now creating the soundtrack for Hollywood project MR-9, starring Frank Grillo and Michael J. White. “What spoke to me was that it’s basically a spy thriller where the lead protagonist is a Bangladeshi guy. This breaks stereotypes and that’s what spoke to me,” he adds. There’s also music for Malayalam film Adrishya Jalakangal, starring Tovino Thomas. “The film is actually an anti-war movie,” Kej says.