Losing the Plot

There’s always a touch of humour in his conversations. His skill definitely lies in turning serious talk into light-hearted sessions, tucking in the perfect quotes and tossing profound, well-analysed opinions. If his music drives you to outer space, his ideas on the art of creating is a straight on eye-opener.

Latrama’s Spanish roots are strong ”“ though they only show subtly in his music ”“ there’s no hiding his Indian tastes. Be it playing the tabla or presenting a well-incubated piece of music, the Indian flavour always leaves a sweet after-taste. “I love many Indian cultural aspects and I follow them from here [Spain]; everything around arts, films, dancing, and architecture overall. I also loved Indian food,” he smiles. Latrama who dabbled in heavy metal as a teenager, played guitar and even wrote a few acoustic numbers, slowly discovered traditional Indian instruments. Quiz him about the birth of his name and he grins, “It’s a Spanish word game ”“ ”˜la trama’ means ”˜the plot’,” he says.

His mash-ups with some of the most celebrated artists, such as DnB giant State Of Bengal, and Genetic Drugs, to name a few, got him noticed and added to the buzz about innovative club sounds. “Tabla was probably the most influential Indian sound in my head from the beginning. In fact I used to play tabla though my hardware sequencer on my live sets before I got one. Tabla sounds touched me so much that I contacted a Mumbai based supplier to get one special ”˜bolt tuned’ tabla that is not possible to get here in Spain,” he explains adding that he was totally new to this instrument. “A bolt tuned tabla is much easier to deal with than the ones with straps. I just started playing the instrument and have never taken classes. I always liked to play tabla as another production and performance tool,” he smiles.

There’s also a whole different side to this artist who dwells in two spaces ”“ music and technology. His last official position was that of a corporate product innovation manager. He believes in keeping music for passion and an interesting job for his daily bread and butter as two segments for now. ” I think that if you love something you will always find enough time to enjoy it. I think both things are compatible and you can develop many things at the same time,” says Latrama who tackles technology consultancy, product development, conceptual design, audio-visual production, mobile/wireless just toe name a few.

In a world overwhelmed by the techno and progressive fever, his faith in alternative club sounds stays strong. Talking about the scene in Spain he says, “It’s not easy for independent music to survive in Spain. But it’s true that alternative movements are growing everywhere in Spain, specially Barcelona, Madrid, Andalucia and Valencia. There are lots of communities looking for a different scene and supporting them. For example, summer’s just around the corner and there will be more than two underground parties close to Madrid every weekend. These are regular summer parties; it’s great to see young collectives organise parties putting in money from their pocket, renting all the PA and gear, then setting up everything from logistics to communication, all for a good party.” While he seems to be in sync with the onslaught of the tech and progressive craze, Latrama is immensely positive about the other genres coming into the spotlight soon. ” I honestly think that other rhythm patterns will open up the scene in the next year step by step. Obviously 4/4 bases are easy to approach and digest but there are a wide range of danceable rhythms from 3/4 to 11/8, even 4/4 with a different drum and snare sounds in clubbing music. Broken-beats and dubstep are becoming massive gradually; they are already huge in many places,” he states.

He credits his experiences and influences to a number of people and mentions a few that have a special place in his heart. “I’ve never stopped learning from my brother, who has been my musical guru. I love sharing the stage with him. Then there’s Genetic Drugs with whom I enjoy playing and the master of east-meets-west fusion State Of Bengal, with whom I had jammed years ago at a festival,” he reminisces ending with one of his treasured memories of playing live. “The most fun and impressive shows I’ve played have been with my collective Chandra Sound System. We usually perform in festivals with big sounds systems and crowded spaces we always have crazy fun! I remember last year in Luxembourg where people became crazy at the end of the show and they started jumping on the stage to dance. Security staff couldn’t do anything to avoid it and we kept passing the microphone to some of the guys and girls there to sing and joke with us. It was wicked!”