The Indian city of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, is regarded by many sources as the cultural capital of India. It is now the primary financial and commercial centre of eastern and northeastern India, with a population of 4.5 million. City Sound Kolkata is a five-volume, arresting, and ambitious attempt to sonify – sound mapping, or a sonic portrait of the city told through its layers of sound – by German, Berlin-based concept, visual and sonic artist, turntablist (and saxophonist), and composer Ignaz Schick (co-produced by the Goethe-Institut South Asia), relying on his previous experience of sound mapping of Istanbul (“Istanbul Diaries“ from 2018 and 2019).
Schick visited Kolkata twice in 2022. The first visit was a month of research in which he collected dozens of hours of field recordings documenting the sounds of the busy, vibrant, and noisy urban metropolis that never sleeps. The second visit was dedicated to a month of production and workshop with local Indian musicians of different genres. During this visit, he formed a group of seven musicians, with classically trained vocalist Sukanya Chattopadhyay, violinist and mandolin player Dibyokamal Mitra, percussionist Somnath Roy, flutist Dr. Subir Ray, with modern, innovative musicians – keyboard and electronics player Varun Desai, drum machine and electronics player Ankit Malik, and double bass player Debjit Mahalanobis.
Schick rehearsed and conducted this versatile ensemble with graphic scores (including video scores), sign language (with hand gestures), and added his turntables and electronics wizardry. This ensemble performed in January 2023 in two four-hour concerts at Max Mueller Bhavan (the Goethe-Institut) in Kolkata. These performances began with a sonic installation of the urban field recordings, slowly gravitating into a conducted arrangement of the urban sounds and towards the ensemble’s live playing, accompanied by close-up photos of the city traffic jams, street food, and iconic buildings, and at its coda returning to the urban city sounds.
This audio-visual performance blurred the distinction between subtle layers of acoustic Indian classical music, its resonating electronic sounds, field recordings, and improvisations, flirting with Indian classical music themes, jazz, and abstract sound art and noise, but irreverently orchestrated into compelling audio-visual installations. Schick is by no means a scholar in classical Indian music, but he brings a fresh approach of an imaginative and resourceful improviser-composer who knows how to weave tonal and atonal music, acoustic instruments, and experimental, live electronics through chance-music conversational improvisations, including in small acoustic and electronic formations. Schick does so with insightful, playful imagination, sharp instincts, and an organic sensibility of time and space – literally, liberating the performers, as well as the listener’s conception of the urban space.
Schick best summarizes this unique sonic journey: «This project is more than a document. It is a memory of a city listening to itself».
Eyal Hareuveni
Ignaz Schick (conduction, turntables, electronics), Sukanya Chattopadhyay (voice), Varun Desai (keyboards, electronics), Debjit Mahalanobis (double bass), Ankit Malik (drum machine, electronics), Dibyokamal Mitra (violin, mandolin), Somnath Roy (percussion, various instruments, voice), Dr. Subir Ray (flutes)
