The Mix
The label’s latest release, ‘Dubfounded,’ brings together electronic music producer Ravana and
folk poet Jumme Khan
A
sk Ankur Malho-
tra and Ashutosh
Sharma from Mad-
ison/New Delhi-based Am-
arrass Records how they
manage work between two
countries and their first re-
action is to manage a laugh.
“It’s been vaguely defined,”
Sharma says, while Malho-
tra adds, “It’s been kind of
crazy.”
Amarrass – a global music
label which also manages
folk, rock and electronic art-
ists – completes 10 years in
- “We’re constantly back
at the drawing board, with
technology changing and so
on,” Sharma says. It’s the age
of streaming and downloads,
but the duo have managed
to bring in their own vinyl
cutting machine and set up
shop in Gurugram, where
each LP is cut in real-time,
based on the number of
songs on each side.
The label is arguably
one of the only one in
India to make their own
vinyl records, out of their
own shop, cutting out any
middlemen who they would
have to place orders from
and then battle enormous
shipping charges to bring
down. Malhotra says, “India
is a very nascent market
when it comes to vinyl but
case in point is Dubfounded,
we shipped orders to South
Africa, Maldives, Denmark,
Spain and the U.S., so it’s
going places.” He’s talkingabout their latest release, a
collaboration between “mil-
itant dub” music producer
Ravana and Alwar, Rajast-
han folk poet Jumme Khan.
Released on April 19th,
the album was something
of a familiar Amarrass sig-
nature – bringing together
the contemporary and folk
worlds in India. Sharma
says the intention with the
label was very much to getyounger audiences to appre-
ciate India’s folk music roots.
Malhotra adds, “We knew
the masters – like the blues
masters of the Mississippi
Delta. It was about creating
those kind of identities for
the Indian equivalents.”
It was in 2010 thatAmarrass began to gain
larger attention, after their
album featuring music by
Rajasthani folk project The
Manganiyar Seduction by
Roysten Abel was launched
at New Delhi’s Purana Qila
with over 4,000 people in
attendance. Sharma says,
“They got to know Amar-
rass Records but they didn’t
know the name of any artists
on stage.” Following thelaunch, Amarrass head-
ed back into Rajasthan’s
long-standing folk music
territories, aiming to “create
their identities.”
In that time, Sharma
(who also works as a travel
agent) and Malhotra (who
works in community radioand is co-partner at music
publication, Madison Music
Review) recorded and re-
leased the music and poetry
of Rajasthani folk artists
such as Sindhi sarangi player
and vocalist Lakha Khan
and Padma Shri awardee
Sakar Khan (who played
kamancha), as part of the At
Home series in 2012. They
borrowed a field recorder
from a friend who was aradio journalist, 10 tapes
for recording and two mics
and cables. “Whether it was
recording, mixing and mas-
tering – we did that all by
talking it out and figuring it
out. We spoke to sound engi-
neers if we ever came across
any problems,” Sharma says.
At the Amarrass Desert
Music Festival in 2011, The
Barmer Boys made their
stage debut, becoming the
contemporized folk project
that would take Rajasthani
folk music around the globe.
By 2014, the trio performed
at Roskilde Festival in
Denmark, on the same day
as The Rolling Stones and
hip-hop group OutKast.
Malhotra says it was “funda-
mental” for Barmer Boys to
get international recognition- something that carries for-
ward even today with regular
Europe and North Amer-
ican sojourns – through
the Roskilde performance.
“That’s sadly the Indian
mentality – foreign returned,
so ‘kuch toh hai’ (‘There’s
something to them’). This
is one of the struggles,
because growing up in India,
we never got exposed to
How Amarrass
Records Took Folk
Music to Global
Acclaim
12 | Rolling Stone | July 2019
“Growing up in India, we never
got exposed to traditional and
‘rural’ music because perhaps it
wasn’t considered ‘sophisticated’
for an urban audience, which is
all BS,” says Malhotra.