MUMBAI: Renowned sound engineer KJ Singh, the man who has contributed immensely to the award winning music of AR Rahman and Vishal Bhardwaj, is now set to launch his record label called Asli Music.
Music maestro AR Rahman will release the record label with the first album on Friday 13 April at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Speaking with Radioandmusic.com Singh said, “Today, major music labels are just promoting film music and not unearthing much of good music. In this scenario, I am launching a music label called ‘Asli Music’ for artistes and bands which have a story to tell. We are taking baby steps as we have to think completely out of the box and innovatively. I am looking for performing artistes who have to be extremely talented and their songs and music have to be real.”
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The first album on the record will be singer Harshdeep Kaur’s devotional album ‘Ik Onkar’ – Mool Mantra. The Mool Mantra contains the essence of the Japji Sahib, the 38 verses and one shlok, which follow. Singh has done the music production while the spiritual verses have been sung by Kaur, the same voice who sang it in Rahman’s ‘Rang De Basanti’. The Nanak painting on the front cover of the album is by talented Delhi painter Arpana Caur.
Singh plans to sign three artistes each year and is not being genre specific at the moment. He averred, “I am just trying to push good music in the market and I believe there is huge talent in the non-film market with genres like rock, pop, bhangra devotional etc. My idea is to bring back independent music as it is very content specific. I am not looking for film music at present but if someone comes to me I am open to it.”
Times Music is the exclusive partner for digital and physical distribution of the album in India, whereas the music label has tied up with Rebeat Digital for international distribution. The album will be available digitally on Nokia- Ovi Store, Flipkart, Flyte, iTunes, Amazon and Napster.
Popularly known as Pahji, Singh is a musician, music producer and sound engineer who has worked in the industry for over three decades. He has won National Film Award for Best Audiography and Filmfare Award for Best Sound Design with Shajith Koyeri and Subash Sahu for his work in the 2006 film Omkara. He is notably known for his work with composers like AR Rahman, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Amit Trivedi, Ismail Darbar and with artistes like Rabbi Shergill, Indian Ocean, Hariharan and Rekha Bhardwaj.
