When rhythm is like oxygen

Drumming on

Drummer Aditya Ashok always had an ear for music. The “avid listener” was brought up in different places like Chennai and Lucknow and transformed this interest of his into a passion when he moved to Mumbai, where he did high school and college. He has been living for the last few years now.

“I ended up forming a band called ‘SOS’ in 2005 when I was just out of school and we used to do shows at places like Hard Rock Cafe. I then joined St Xavier’s College and started meeting a lot of musicians, who I’d end up working with in the years to come,” says the artiste. He then formed another band in college called ‘Rosemary’ and played at many independent music competitions.

Aditya now plays for bands like ‘Shaa’ir + Func’ and ‘Skyharbor’ and even has his own act called ‘OX7GEN’ as part of which, he released a new EP called ‘Recess’. ‘OX7GEN’, which is his “drum n’ bass avatar”, has played at all major festivals in the past two years and opened for international bass music acts like ‘KOAN Sound’, ‘London Elektricity’, ‘Dub Phizix’ and more. “Drum ‘n bass is a niche genre which consists of 170 beats per minute. It had its origin in the UK and I took to it when a friend introduced me to ‘London Elektricity’, who is a pioneer in it. Though it’s still gaining popularity in India, there are festivals like ‘Bass Camp Festival’ which help promote it.” He describes his sound as “melodic, deep, ambient and groove”.

‘Recess’ is an evolution of sorts. “It is an evolved sound. I have brought in influences of different music styles that I was exposed to over the last year, as well as certain production ideas. What makes this release different from all my past ones is probably the variety of styles on it. I decided to throw in a bunch of different songs that were not particularly written to be a part of the same release.”

All set to perform is Bengaluru, Aditya has played here many times before but this will be the first time he will be performing as part of ‘OX7GEN’. “The music scene in the City is really good. It’s great to perform at a place where you know you will have a lot of people attending the show.”

Though a largely one-man act, Aditya enjoys collaborating with other artistes. “In terms of songwriting, I work alone. But when I take it live, I like to collaborate,”he says. ‘Four Tet’, ‘Kink’ and Jon Hopkins are some of the artistes he would love to work with. “I know I will get to learn something new from them,” he notes.

As of now, he is busy promoting his EP and in October, he will be touring the United States with ‘Skyharbor’. He is working on many more interesting projects including a new EP, which will come out after he is back from the States.

‘OX7GEN’ will be performing at The Humming Tree, Indiranagar on September 4, 9 pm onwards.