this interview had been waiting to be published for ages – until now. i’ve just dusted it off and polished it up for you. meet Angad Berar, an elusive Indian multi-instrumentalist based in Berlin.
i discovered Angad in 2019 through a magazine article about his debut album Elephants on the Beach and spent the entire day listening to it on repeat. when i couldn’t find his Instagram (classic Angad move), i ended up following his sister instead. she’s an incredible chef, i’m obsessed with her recipes, and since then we‘ve got a few vodka shots to our name.
before i spiral into a whole other story, here’s what matters: Angad’s music is pure respite, the kind that makes you feel ecstatic and genuinely want to live life fully. i felt that rush with every track on Elephants on the Beach, and i get the same scintillating energy from his latest work Sundae, a collaboration with Karthik Pillai (of Jamblu, Peter Cat Recording Co., and Begum).
Sundae drips with charisma. psychedelic Krautrock with a splash of Hindustani classical – this is the place. think progressive and space rock from the sixties and seventies, distorted guitar strumming into a never-ending summer sunset. the vision is clear, and it is justified by the colourful cover of the record.
to celebrate the release, Angad offers a glimpse into his mind through these nine questions, plus an excellent playlist to match. join the journey, won‘t you?
artist mixtape
1/9 Tivoli by Night by Jean-Pierre Mirouze + 2/9 Synthesist by Harald Grosskopf + 3/9 The Soft Weed Factor by Soft Machine + 4/9 Shiva-Loka by Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders + 5/9 Nuska by maya ongaku + 6/9 Laila, Pt.2 by Agitation Free + 7/9 Sunshine by Sunbirds + 8/9 Venice by the Sea by Causa Sui + 9/9 Blanket Song by Kikagaku Moyo
in conversation
1/9 tracing the spark that ignited this fiery connection with music. where does the story begin?
„one of the earliest memories of music was this little plastic cube music box. it rotates within its own self. it has a little disc underneath it, and you can wind it up and let go, and it just rotates and responds by playing a classical piece.
the name of the piece escapes me right now.
the cube has slits with childhood images of my sister, my grandparents, and my parents on each surface of the cube. we still have it, and i think that’s probably the first constant sound i heard growing up… and the first music player i’ve had.
i think it still hasn’t hit me that this is a space i want to carve my name in. it’s just been a very slow gradient of progression where i’ve sat down to make music, and the network of people that it has been shared with is slowly increasing with every project. it started with probably sending MP3s to friends and family, then uploading it on Bandcamp, and then Spotify… followed by analogue releases…
i think that is, at the purest core of it, the idea behind all the works: make art to share it with my loved ones. the rest of it is just maybe word of mouth, which I think is better now.
my family/friends love music, and we love sharing music with each other. sometimes one of us just ends up making a tune and we share it, and that’s about it. everyone is invited to partake in these conversations.“
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2/9 the making of Sundae, your fourth album, marks a new chapter – one where solitary creations take a backseat and Karthik Pillai steps in to add colour to your sound. what are your thoughts on this?
„the process of making this record was great. it was just what was intended.
after Elephants on the beach, i kind of took a step back from composing full band albums. i wasn’t too happy with the drum sounds. i think i just lacked the knowledge of what it should sound like. and then took a 3-4 year break from that form of work.
the intention of this project was to bring back the grooves, the drums and whatnot. so i reached out to Kartik to help me out with this project. i had previously worked with him on Existing Quietly, but more from a mixing/mastering engineer point of view. and i loved his approach to sound and his sensitive collaboration style.
but in this case, i wanted a little springboards sparring partner to get down and get the grooves out. and yeah, it worked perfectly. it was a charm to work with him. he is super humble, informative, pacific-deep with his technical knowledge as well as his creative workflows.
he is like that big oak tree under which one takes shelter during a storm.
we had a very fast recording session. i flew to India and lived with him at the Karuta studio for 5 days. and we finished a track per day. there were a couple of tracks which required less tweaking and more of mixing and mastering and that was done remotely between Berlin and Faridabad.
one of the tracks, Jam 6, was live recorded also in his studio. on the last day, he had a friend, Sid, who is also a drummer, come over and we spent the whole day just jamming. huge shoutout to Sid as well for his drums. some of those jams might see the light of day in the coming future.
and yeah, anyone who is reading this, if you are looking for a producer, hit Kartik (@jambluness) up on IG.“
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3/9 much of your music seems to orbit an amalgam of psychedelia, Krautrock, and Hindustani classical influences. what keeps you drawn to the intersection of these genres? are you guided by specific emotional arcs or, do you let the music flow intuitively, without a map?
„there is is a spiritual calling towards these genres. i haven’t intellectualised or analysed it, and just accepted that these are the sounds that I like, and these are the compositional styles that I’m drawn towards.
am i guided by emotional arcs and narratives? yes, most of the time it’s emotional. Elephants on the Beach was intended to have a positive psychedelic arc. whereas Existing Quietly, which was made with Debjit Banerjee, was supposed to have this somber, melancholic, yet very strong introspective mood to it. it was a very emotional recording phase.
and now, with Sundae, it was composed to be a playlist designed for driving, with a positivity through and through.
i think sometimes it’s just intuitive. i would enter a recording phase with a certain emotional intention, and then let it take over. and sometime in the editing process, take these collages of different emotions and cut them together to create a narrative that will make sense to the project.“
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4/9 AstroKnaut, in particular, seems to exist in its own small eternity. how important are repetition and subtle variation in your compositions? Is there a spiritual or philosophical practice underpinning this approach?
„that’s a great question. also, i like how you put repetition and subtle variation in the question itself.
i guess it’s natural. repetition and subtle variation exist in these compositions. I don’t think about it too much consciously. it’s just a natural by-product of who i am. what i don’t like or what i don’t resonate with is a lot of changes in chord progressions. one-chord songs are perfect. two-chord songs are great too.
i like linearity more and going deeper into the framework of that linearity, which i guess would tie up to the repetition. and with time, there’s variation in this journey. it can get quite hypnotic and engulfing. i think the roots of this are definitely coming from Hindustani classical music. and i guess maybe from meditative practices like Transcendental Meditation or Vipassana.
the idea is to just do the same thing over X amount of time and one just goes deeper into it as a by-product. the variations are also a by-product of the change in the person and change in the person’s environment. but the overall intention is the same.“
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5/9 the song Driving With You on Sundae is your first vocal release. it introduces a delicate and noticeable shift in tone. can we expect more of these vocal stints in future releases?
„i feel great about the song. it’s all thanks to Kartik. he pushed me to try out vocals on this track, because initially it was meant to be an instrumental as well. but yeah, one afternoon he just asked me to put some vocals in. i think we wrote the lyrics that afternoon or evening, and then the next day we did a couple of takes of the song. And yeah, that was that.
i think it’s probably opened up the floodgates to vocals as well, hahah.
yeah, unfortunately/fortunately, the world is going to get more of this. so if there’s any blaming to be done, just write to Kartik‘s PO box and ask him to stop this madness.“
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6/9 has Berlin influenced your artistic trajectory? what is it about the city that speaks to you as an artist? and how does this interact with your Goan state of mind?
„Berlin, it’s awesome. there’s so much music here, from a tiny Spati to people busking on bridges and train stations, and whatnot. there is art everywhere in Berlin on walls, in museums, on people. very humbling place to be.
it’s influenced me a lot from a technical point of view. the quality of music, the passion, the amount of effort put into the quality of the sound that emerges out from speakers, the quality of output… is a lot. it’s super inspiring. from a very practical point of view, it provides easier access to tools like second-hand synthesizers and drum machines, pedals, which I think will play a major role in the upcoming projects.
i think it hasn’t had an impact yet on me truly from a city point of view. i’m just curious to see what role it plays, unlike places in the past that have. i don’t know. the Goan state of mind has a permanent housing project in my brain, and there’s no laws being passed to demolish it.
its just compartmentalised. they all have their tiny real estates next to each other. i think what is curious to see is how the amalgamation of these influences looks like in the future.“
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7/9 now that you’re starting to explore social media, how do you feel about using it to grow and connect with your audience?
„after all these years of abstinence, I feel okay and secure about it. because for the last five years, all my work has come from not being on social media, there is no pressure to really work the algo. i’m a practitioner of emailing people using the old internet mailing service. and i still rely on that for acting as a catalyst for collaboration and reaching the right people. curious to see what role social media plays in future bodies of work.
although that micro dopamine hit is a real thing, god damn.
i am keeping a strong hold on the threads, the breadcrumbs which have been laid down as i trail into this dense forest of social network, hoping not to lose my way, if you know what i mean.
it’s an experiment, for sure. and most importantly, the intention was to support the people who are supporting me. that is, Echodelick Records, Gezellig Records, Stickman Records, they’ve taken the time and effort to promote the album. so i guess the least i could do is become an @, instead of a hashtag.
definitely sitting at the front seat of this, lets see where this film pans to.“
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8/9 do you think visually when you compose? and how do you know when a piece of music is truly finished?
„sometimes, i mostly think about an album from a conceptual or emotional sense i.e., what emotional journey might this body of work take the listener through.
the kaleidoscopic nature of the work is a result of who i am, i guess. i naturally see the world through these lenses. we are surrounded by rainbows, golden chrysalises… kaleidoscopic bugs… and they end up making their way into these sonic pieces. for Sundae, i imagined the album to play just like a playlist designed for driving, what might one see on their way?
how do i know when a piece of music is truly finished? there is always a sense of uncertainty around this question, and incidentally, its a very popular yet challenging question in the arts. for Sundae, Kartik and I just had each other to bounce off the question with, there comes a day where the pendulum slowly swings to a satisfied state of mind. in short, we never know until we know.“
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9/9 love listening to albums end-to-end, so before you go, are there any that make the cut?
„ooh, love this part of interviews. i usually have a few albums on rotation that i listen to back to back. lately, these three have been melting my mind:
All Is Sound by The Cosmic Tones Research Trio , Approach to Anima by Maya Ongaku , and Apostrophe(´) by Frank Zappa.
i loved answering these questions. thank you so much for having me as a part of the +nine series. looking forward to reading your next newsletter.“
a big thank you to Angad Berar for taking the time out write these answers and thank you to all readers of course. stay totally tuned xox