At the forefront of proceedings is dynamic Delhi duo BLOT!. In addition to being one of the festival founders they also have a whole bunch of live shows to multi-task into the mix.

By any standard one of the most anticipated events of the festival is Antariksha Yatra, the official closing event. A unique performance based on the history of aviation, exploring the mythology, science and imagination behind flight.

This will be no ordinary show. The performance will fuse elements of Indian classical dance with electronic music and visuals, simultaneously creating a dynamic multi sensory cinematic experience in which all the senses can be truly indulged.

In addition to BLOT!, team Antariksha Yatra has adopted internationally acclaimed performer, choreographer, teacher and author Guru Jayalakshmi Eshwar, renown for her forward thinking approach to classical dance. An artist you can always expect to deliver diverse styles of movement interwoven into the choreography of the piece. Some of these will include aerial yoga, chhau, kallari, modern dance and fashion choreography.

Sattyananda a.k.a Nikhel Mahajan (Mr Audio Aashram) is involved in this rich mix with contribution on the electronic music composition and production side of the show. Prepare for ‘rich atmospheric textures and some downright twisted pschedelia’!

Delhi-based 11.11 by Cell DSGN have also joined this elite creative force and will be styling the show with Oroon Das overseeing the production whilst Anagram Architects will be responsible for making the stage look spectacular.

The balance and fusion between old and new is by no means a new concept to Indian performances. A lot of contemporary music made by artists across the board within this country incorporates the legacy of its Indian classical roots. Artists like Nitin Sawnhey (shortly to be arriving in India for his debut tour) successfully took this to the mainstream back in the ’90s which followed thereafter with more fusion bands than we could ever get in to.

Antariksha Yatra will certainly be stretching the boundaries of multi-disciplinary performance. Presenting an enlightening fusion of technology, dance, music, art, visuals, theatre, fashion and architecture. A true crossover and ground-breaking performance that shouldn’t be missed!

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This event is free to attend but pre–registration is essential.
Venue: Max Mueller Bhaven
Date/Time: Saturday 4 February | 8pm – 11pm

Useful links:
http://www.celldsgn.in/
http://quicksand.co.in/
http://www.facebook.com/blottin
http://www.unboxfestival.com/
http://soundcloud.com/sattyananda

Based in New Delhi, the Wild City is an online music magazine that presents contemporary music news and events from India and across the world.

This time around, the event, like its first edition, is being organized by the British Council and Goethe Institute Max Mueller Bhavan, in collaboration with Delhi-based design studios CoDesign and Quicksand, along with electronica outfit Basic Love of Things/BLOT, and photography commune Blind Boys.

The conferences, scheduled to take place from February 3 and 4. Last year, the festival included speakers like John Thackara, VK Madhavan, MP Ranjan, MP Rajpal, Lakshmi Murthy, Aditi Ranjan, Nico Macdonald, Harsh Purohit, Ayush Chauhan, Parmesh Shahani, Richard Eisermann, and Apala Chavan who talked about subjects varying from sustainability, design, consultancy and innovation. Details for this years conference will be up soon. The Fellowship Programme(s) (registrations for which are now open) cover sustainable fashion, digital activism, hacking for governance and more.

The Partner Festivals spread through Feb 2-5 also include TechnoDrome, EyeMyth, BlowUp, FoodLab and BeatRepeat. Primarily staying similar to last year’s format, Unbox Festival 2012 will be essentially the same, with newer people and newer speakers.

Check out a video from this year’s edition of the Unbox Festival.

The Unbox Festival 2011 from qs vimeo1 on Vimeo.

The Indian Music Flyer Project, an initiative of The Greenhouse, is an exhibition of gig posters and flyers from all over the country. Bands, venues, and graphic designers for music are invited to participate in this exhibit, by sending in their artwork. “This exhibition is part of a larger project to document music culture in India. We’re also going to do something in a film format – not a feature film, but short snippets that record the music scene in India. It’s a project that’s been a long time coming, we’ve been wanting to do this for almost three years now,” says Gaurav Malaker of BLOT, one of the organizers of the event.

“Flyer culture is nascent in India. Especially with Facebook, nobody really cares about flyers anymore. We’d like to document the flyers in print – we’re not looking to create a timeline or trace the evolution of flyers in India. It’s not a deep, philosophical project – it just seemed like a really fun thing to do.” They have already received a lot of artwork for the exhibit, from bands and event management companies all over the country. “We’ve already received posters from a lot of electronica bands, smaller artists and event management companies, and we’re just readying them for the exhibition,” says Malaker.

We’ve seen a slow but definite growing consciousness about poster artwork in the scene – with bands either doing the artwork themselves or tying up with visual artists. Bands like The Pulp Society, PINKNOISE, The Mavyns, Lounge Piranha, Peter Cat Recording Co, The Lightyears Explode, (and once, we saw this one really cool poster by Phobia) and many others are starting to feel the need to substantiate their music with an aesthetic element. The days of Comic Sans against pixelated guitar stock images are fading slowly.

The Indian Music Flyer Project will run from April 17 – May 8 at The Greenhouse, Hauz Khas. Bands/artists can send in their artwork/flyers in jpeg format (200 dpi or above) to avinash@quicksand.co.in

There are five segments to the event – the UnBox design conference, the EyeMyth film festival, the BeatRepeat spoken word and literature festival, Salon der Alchemisten the experimental media festival, and the TechnoDrome electronic music festival. The venues/events are located about five minutes away from eachother.

Part of the festival will highlight the creative practices underway in Hauz Khas Village, with an Open Studios Day. A German graffiti artist along with some collaborators will be live-painting a large wall in Hauz Khas. The experimental space Salon de Alchemisten will showcase experimental music and art installations, classical music and dance, the work of a bamboo artist-designer from Kanpur and others, and even a mini-pizza laboratory.

There will be a public event called the Make-a-thon, to be held on February 27, which will involve an all-day all-night tinkering session. Another public event is The Spoon Project, which is an intense six-day workshop held at an upcoming restaurant The Grey Gardens, which looks at a reinvention of the experience of eating liquid food. *cough*pretentious*cough* This event will run from February 19.

The festival also features a tie-up with the Austrian Cultural Forum, and will include a screening of the Ars Electronica Animation Showcase 2010 at EyeMyth. There will be live visuals/cinema performances by New Culture Mash-Up ft. BLOT, Nucleya, 4Your Eye (VJ collective from Austria) and Epoch (Bangalore/Mumbai).

The Technodrome Festival will feature performances by Nucleya, Bay Beat Collective, Uri, BASSFoundation, 4YourEye (VJ/Austria) and BlueOrb on February 25, and D-Sens (France), BLOT,  Kohra, and Jitter. The design conference will host a series of workshops on ideation, design thinking, storytelling, typography, and urban planning, among other things.

The conference will be held from February 24-27 at The British Council in New Delhi, near Connaught Place. Registrations are closed, and the conference will be seating 200 people. Check out the entire schedule here, and find more details on their website.

We spoke with founding member Gaurav Malaker about the album

The album is not one specific style of music, so it’s not techno, it’s not house, or anything of the sort. It will ideally cover a spectrum of music, including dubstep, DnB, hiphop, and minimal techno. It’s going to be a DVD album, so as to maintain the essence of our performances through the album. As of now, it’s currently intended to be a CD or a DVD, the DVD is going to consist of a bunch of videos with a bunch of tracks. When I say video, I don’t mean like us dancing in the video, like looking cool and stuff, but videos of things we’ve made that we feel suit the context of the music and vice versa. Then there’ll be an audio CD, which will just have our regular album.

It won’t be given away as a free download – it is a commercial venture. When I say commercial venture, I’m not talking about the music, but the intent is to have it available at most music stores – at least in the metropolitan cities. We’ll also sell it on our website, there will be a dedicated website for the album.

Check out a promo for the album below.