Goodbye Anoop (FMCDA010)

Available now on CDBaby and elsewhere by Jul/Aug 2010

• Voice - Vamsi Das
• Mridangist/percussionist - Brindan
• Ghatom - unknown
• Violin - Balu Raghuraman
• Engineer, Mix & Master - Drongomala

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Recommended if you like Carnatic music of South India, Hindu Devitional, World music, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Dr. Balamuralikrishna, Pandit Jasraj

• Recorded in some living room in a flat in Maidenhead 10 years ago
• Mixed in Spooky Electric
• Artwork by AntKnee

Goodbye Anoop on Soundcloud

This recording is in memory of my good friend Anoop who was lost on 13th May 2009. The Deccan Herald in India reported it like this:

35-year-old man from Kerala was found dead on the railway tracks here on Wednesday. The Railway police are yet unable to ascertain if it was case of an accident or a suicide.

The train ran over Anup Adityan, a native of Thrissur in Kerala between the Elagi and Anekal Railway stations in Byapanahalli division limits.

He had booked two private bus tickets from Sangli to Bangalore, and from Bangalore to Thrissur. “It is not clear what he was doing on the railway tracks. His family members have arrived in the City to collect the body,” said a top GRP official. The post-mortem was completed at Bowring Hospital on Thursday afternoon. The accident would have taken place around 9.30 am, the sources said.

Adityan had just completed his education in London and was keen on setting up an old age home in Bangalore, police added.

It doesn't tell you anything much about him. He was a bright soul with a good heart but a troubled mind. We mostly talked about art and politics and his indexing of facts and figures was close to photographic memory ability. Up until I met him I hadn't known Carnatic classical music much beyond one or two names. Anoop opened me up to the richness of the South of India and her traditions when most of what I was listening to was from the Northern tradition of Hindustani.

He set me up with the musicians for this recording which took place around 10 years back. It was with a young singer who went by Vamsi Das (Vamshikrishna Vishnudas) and had a wonderful tone and authority in his voice beyond his years. The songs were a mixture of light classical and folk tunes. We recorded on my mobile setup in the living room and hall of a semi in Maidenhead, England, UK and got the whole record done in a day.

Afterwards when I went to Kerala to record Scale is was he who provided me with contacts to insulate the impact of trying to run a studio in the middle of the jungle. He put his name on the line for the crazy foreigner.

The last time I saw him we were lying on the grass looking up at the stars during a suprise warm night for Manchester.

He left his book called 'An Encyclopedia of Symbols' that night.