Ox7gen Releases Second EP

Ox7gen. Photo: Iza Viola

Barely six months ago, Aditya Ashok released Any Minute Now, the debut EP from his drum ’n bass solo project, Ox7gen. Now, after spending two weeks in Goa, the electronica artist has readied his second EP, An Ocean For Everyone. “I just wanted to get out of the city and do this. I went to Palolem beach with my gear and decided to work on this concept album,” says Ashok.

With only two tracks, Ox7gen’s latest EP is as short as his Goan holiday. “I wanted to do three to five songs, but I realized 12 days was not long enough to make a lot of music. I couldn’t do it in this short time. I recorded three tracks but I wasn’t convinced about one of them, so I decided to drop it,” he says. His vacation recording was put together at a makeshift studio that he set up inside a shack on the beach. “I went there with my gear”¦ an acoustic guitar, computer and synth. Initially, I just wanted to use my beat sampler, guitar and new synth (a MiniBrute) for this EP,” he says. “But then I realized that I forgot to carry cables for the tempo sync,” he adds.

Without a condenser mic or a mic stand, Ashok opted to use a field recorder instead. From recording the sound of the waves, which is a constant on both tracks to conversations with friends in Goa, which forms the intro to the second track, the field recording comes with a hissing background sound that Ashok is happy to overlook. “I wanted to create something that would remind me of my stay here,” he says, adding, “And each of the two songs capture a different mood. The first one is a night listen, while the second is about my mornings here.”

At the EP launch gig today, Ashok will showcase the new ambient tracks, before playing his usual “high energy, fluid” material. “When I wrote these songs (from the EP) I knew they were too mellow and chilled out (unlike my usual stuff) and won’t work in a club. So this time I’ll be doing a live set, something I’ve never done before. I’ll be deconstructing the songs and making them club friendly,” he says, adding that he’s working on a full-length album which he hopes to release this year.

Sky Rabbit’s Raxit Tewari will also bring his solo act, Your Chin, to stage today. Tewari, who hopes to release Your Chin’s second EP this year, will perform some of his new material today. “I’m playing four unreleased tracks besides the EP stuff. There are a couple of newer songs, but they’re not ready to be played yet,” says Tewari. Song such as “Electro-what,” “For Love,” “Sleeping” and “Run Along Little One,” will be part of his hour-long set, which will be accompanied by visuals and videos that he’s put together with the help of some friends. “All of them are fun songs. Some are quicker and more skiddy than the others,” he adds.

Ayan De, who has been busy readying Tewari’s band, Sky Rabbit’s EP, Where, will also be performing a set under his stage moniker Paralights. “I will be playing one new song, but otherwise it will be from previous sets , nothing new, but just a smoother and more live set up today,” says De. “Right now, the working title is ”˜Damn you, James Blake.’ It has sort of a James Blake feel to it,” he says about his new track. 

 Ox7gen, Your Chin and Paralights perform at Blue Frog, Mumbai on May 21st, 2013. Entry Rs 350 or Rs 1,000 (full cover). For details, click here