Producer Sujoy Sarkar Drops Enigmatic Debut Album ‘Sitting At Strawberry Fields Cause I Met Owsley on the Way’

Pune/Ahmednagar-bred producer Sujoy Sarkar counts himself as a nerd that loved computers and history as well as football. Within this juxtaposition of personal interests, Sarkar was also groomed by his older brother with music. He was introduced to heavy bands such as Lamb of God, Tool, Opeth, God is an Astronaut as well as prog-rockers Porcupine Tree. “The nature of exposure had a stark impact in cultivating a genre blind individual out of me,” he says.

As a teenager, he picked up the drums and by the time he got to college he discovered hip-hop, electronic and trap music. As he reels off the artists that inspired him, he says, “A serious deliberation to conceptualize my music into an album only began in February of this year and the presence of isolation during the pandemic has really played a pivotal role in giving my work an effective direction.” The direction Sarkar has taken with his music is presented neatly in his just-released 12-track debut album Sitting At Strawberry Fields Cause I Met Owsley on the Way.

According to Sarkar, the new record revolves around the “philosophical interpretation of a panopticon.” The role the producer plays is of an activist in extension to his music and he’s quite cleverly used tech acronyms to title his tracks. The surging “Boundless Informant” comes from “big data analysis” while Sarkar explains that the heady “Singularity” is the “ultimate mission of a tech rationalist community where the creation of super artificial intelligence will give rise to an intelligence explosion.”  The record also contains voice samples by the likes of academic figures such as Shoshana Zuboff, Noam Chomsky and Julian Assange that are included to educate people on issues that aren’t being covered by the mainstream media.

Currently, Sarkar is also studying at the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru. Ask him how he’s able to juggle his curriculum and music and he says, “A glance through my mark sheet shall tell you the same.” The producer has already started work on his next project which will be out next year. The forthcoming material is going to include an adult alternative style as well as ambient and techno music. Sarkar also plans on collaborating with vocalists. He says, “One of the themes will certainly be an experiment to engage with our conservative biases about psychotropic substances as a result of archaic and dogmatic cultural discourses.”

Stream ‘Sitting At Strawberry Fields Cause I Met Owsley on the Way’ below: