Trip-Hop Duo A/T/O/S Kick Off India Tour This Week

In some regards, it’s fair to compare trip-hop to nu-metal in terms of the movement it became, spawning a handful of mainstays in a short time who gained widespread following. What nu-metal was to heavy music, trip-hop became for fans of electronic and hip-hop music, an amalgam that was sort of formulaic but also had artists such as Massive Attack, Morcheeba and Portishead to draw outside the boxes.

Belgium duo A/T/O/S (A Taste of Struggle) are taking that sound ahead, considering they’ve been signed to electronic producer Mala’s record label Deep Medi. It’s all about doing different things, says producer Truenoys. “They (existing trip-hop artists) just take what they’ve done before and do something else with it. It’s crazy because some of these artist who invented those new styles and got me into buying vinyl and really set the tone for it are now close friends and/or we’ve been doing a support act for them.”

With Truenoys’ slick, murky and often minimal production, A/T/O/S is completed by the vocals of Amos, who met in 2012 and released their self-titled debut in 2014. Earlier this year, their second album Outboxed was out on Deep Medi as well. Amos says the favorite part about making new music was thinking up song titles, growing as a group and “trying new sounds but respecting the old. It’s cool to do.” The duo bring their album to India for the first time this week, with a four-city tour between October 12th and 15th. While Amos says they were “shocked” when they received an invite from artist, event and booking agency Mixtape, Truenoys adds, “The electronic music scene seems to be a growing thing here in India , we’ve been told that it kind of started getting more serious since 2007. Once it starts it never stops, you can’t control that.”

(from left) Rohan Ramanna and Sohrab Nicholson of LANDS. Photo: Ashish Shah

Adding to the evening is the first set of club shows by LANDS, the new avatar of Mumbai electronic duo Nicholson. Comprising Sohrab Nicholson on vocals and production and drummer Rohan Ramanna, the duo’s makeover comes from their change in sonic direction. Nicholson, who calls it a natural progression, adds, “We had taken a step back from the project to really assess what direction we wanted to go sonically and visually, and we found ourselves being quite far from the old project. Drowning in a sea of new names, somehow, when we came up with LANDS, it felt right, open to enough interpretation, and expansive like our music.” Their set will comprise earlier material “to transition people comfortably without confusing them” but aims to concentrate on new songs, part of an album the duo is working to release by the first half of 2018. Nicholson says, “We’ve written a lot, so can’t say for certainty which songs will end up making the album, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it in a few months.”

Mixtape presents A/T/O/S + LANDS India Tour

October 12th – Antisocial, New Delhi w/ Lacuna

October 13th – Antisocial, Mumbai w/ Reels

October 14th – The Humming Tree, Bengaluru w/ Aerate Sound

October 15th – High Spirits, Pune w/BigFat (without LANDS)

Event details here.