Filmmaker and musician Q has come up with his latest artistic project Oddspace, a creative and collaborative space for musicians. Besides supporting musicians by functioning as a label and offering them a platform and a space to showcase their acts, Oddspace, located in Lake Gardens in south Calcutta, also includes a backend merchandising store. The idea behind the venture, as Q puts it, “is to create a complete ecosystem that merges all digital doorways and enables music lovers to come in and enjoy an atmosphere or vibe with each other in a particular way, which is what the modern music experience is all about. These days, all around the world, artistes build ecosystems that provide for all the aspects of life that the art manifests”.
Serving as an ideal space where music lovers can walk in and hear new, original and exciting music being played live, Oddspace chiefly intends to support and encourage new and experimental music talents of Bengal. Oddspace’s inaugural event on September 19 witnessed the launch of a song by Q’s own band Death by Anjuna, featuring debutante artiste Ganja Kumari. A song that is in his signature avant-garde and experimental style, it is titled Shuddho prem and is a slow, haunting track with an electronic sound that will make listeners want to groove to its beats. The first of its kind song in Bangla, Shuddho prem fuses the elements of an old song by poet Mansur Fakir, initially recorded in an old documentary by Q titled Love In India (2009) and another song Neel chhobi from Q’s film Gandu (2010), which Q believes “said the same thing and shared the same synergy, though in a different style, being separated by a time frame of 80 years”.
Also to be unveiled is the music video of the song. A fun video, it has been shot by Confused Pictures, the makers of recent campy Bangla song videos that have gone viral. “Shot in the single-shot technique, it is powerful, funny and very vibey,” asserted the Death by Anjuna frontman. The song’s launch and debut performance will be followed by another performance on September 20 at the CCU Fest in Biswa Bangla Exhibition Centre in New Town.
Friday’s song and video launch was followed by an exciting lineup of performances featuring Q’s friends, singers Arko Mukhaerjee and Sumit Roy, with whom he had wanted to collaborate for a long time. Goa-Delhi-based DJ Dubhyd, who plays drum and bass, also performed that night. “I want this programme to be about people who have been influential in developing an alternative Indian sound and have gone international with it. The show offers an experience that people in Calcutta have not seen. The space, our plan, the sound and the visuals, everything is completely different from anything that this city has seen,” he said.
Death By Anjuna comprises Q himself in his rapper identity of Doktorgandu, and two others, including The Burning Deck and Ganja Kumari.
Having always been a champion of newer forms and genres of music, Q feels that the present is a great time for music, because “everything is in a flux and the rules are changing” thus offering the best opportunity for musicians to explore newer sounds. At present, Oddspace is also trying to understand what the local market is missing in terms of music and finding ways to fill this gap and deliver it to the youth in Bengal. Q also wants to invite talents like Bangladeshi rapper Anik Khan to perform at Oddspace. At the moment, Oddspace, in partnership with Bisbo Records, has a vision of putting out at least 25 songs in a year. With Death by Anjuna soon planning to take Bengal by storm with their first album release and a slew of performances this season, it appears that Oddspace is well on its way to achieving its target.
