TIPU SABZAWAAR

Far away from the "sequencer school", Taimur Sheikh's aka Tipu Sabzawaar (or just Tipu), musical idiom is enriched with a polished roughness but above all a very creative and personal songwriting style. That is one of his best attributes I have constantly found in his releases, so far.

Anyway, "Misgivings (of Me, Myself and I)", is in all quiet nostalgic yet detached. Its solitary melody line walks through noise-environments that suggest futuristic spaces of factory like sounds transfigured into multi-ethnic dreamscapes, which enhance the human aspect of the same, therefore one can easily follow this heartfelt trail of breadcrumbs all along the way and feel it like one's own walk.

Great news for the P/E crowd there is life after TD!

****4 "SOLID" PA stars.

Taimur Sheikh aka "Tipu Sabzawaar" is one hell of an addition to PA. Inevitably mentioning along the way that he was (or is?) half part of 6LA8 well known by some of this PA´s sub-genre followers.

Well enough introduction! Tipu Sabzawaar´s 2012 "Brink Trip" to describe it in an instant, is bombastic, heartfelt, uncompromising, unpretentious, groundbreaking, completely original, multicultural progressive electronics with firm close encounters with contemporary electronics and stylings (drone, dub, noise, shoegaze, glitch, world, etc, etc.). The project as such is the kind that plays and sounds like the possible realization of a masterpiece alongside a tightly constructed own electronic idiom.

2012 was a very busy year for Taimur Sheikh as his PA and Bandcamp (name your price) discography show up to now. I have listened to some of them, but this one is simply fantastic.

Let me try to explain what makes it tick beyond the mere good and move to "essential", inches away from masterpiece.

As I mentioned the blending of not only electronic styles to the point of becoming something entirely fresh and new, but also the meticulous use of myriads of out-dated or very popular or known "marketed synth sounds" and transfiguring this conscious display of memorabilia into genuinely different and sometimes quiet opposite, from their original roots , sonic environments. And those "new" and different grounds are Tipu Sabzawaar´s keen and extremely polished and more than once genial sense of music composition.

As I mention to my art students, a good drawing goes with everything, the same seems the case for highly inspired melodical lines. The same that you will encounter, in this multi-cultural electronic release, nothing less.

****4.(imaginary) 5, PA stars!

Tipu Sabzawaar is half of Pakistani duo 6LA8 and while you still see remnants of the band in this project, this is assuredly great in its own right. More of an electronic experimentation than anything, this record is a soothing one but in a much different way than the jam sessions of 6LA8. This is much more smooth and shiny than the sort of jazzy-calm feel you get with the jam sessions and in that way it was a very fun record to get to hear from the project.

Basically one long track with complimented by the six tracks' segues, it's one of those records you can definitely sit down and listen to all the way through, samples aplenty and sound effects just plain beautiful. It drones and sizzles all the way through from it's quiet and considerate start to it's electronically dense ending. It is, to say the least, and epic electronic feat.

It's name-your-price on bandcamp, so giving this album a good listen won't do you any harm. In fact, it's a masterpiece that blows the listener away.