Music industry needs more risk takers: Composer Karsh Kale

He’s easily one of the pioneers of electronic music in India, what with having mixed incongruent genres of music like rock, pop, Indian classical and folk amongst others. Composer and producer Karsh Kale is a churner of what you call as ‘distinctive’ sound.

In addition to his list of work that includes remixing, producing, playing DJ and composing music albums, Bollywood has been a part of Karsh’s life as well. He, along with the band Midival Punditz, forayed into mainstream Bollywood last year when they composed the original background score for films like Karthik Calling Karthik and Dum Maro Dum. This time around, the trio has turned music composers for the film Soundtrack.

Soundtrack tells a modern-day, edgy story of a prolific musician and DJ’s journey to the top, even as it captures his alcohol, drug and sex-fuelled rise that is contradicted by an inevitable handicap.

Directed by Neerav Ghosh, the film stars Rajeev Khandelwal and Soha Ali Khan in lead roles.

Talking about his experience of working for the film, he says, “Though we have done background scores for films earlier, composing music for Soundtrack was a different experience altogether. Since the film is about a DJ, the sound of the film involves a lot of electronic music, so we had the opportunity to remix some old songs as well.”

The film has about 11 tracks and singers like Anushka Manchanda, Kailash Kher, Papon have crooned for the album. Probing Karsh about the content of today’s Bollywood music, and he says, “Bollywood music has several tags attached to it.

However, when we are talking about frivolous subjects, the music too needs to be on those lines and vice versa. Nevertheless, we have had some great content in the music scene so far.”

However, he also points out that the industry must have a couple of risk takers to help witness change. “I have not shyed away from any scene — be it electronic, pop or jazz. Neither have I been dependent on Bollywood. However, it is sad to see music being repetitive. There was a momentary time where they let in fresh music, but after a certain point, the composers are bound to repeat it again. We need more risk takers in our industry to revolutionise music and see a change,” he signs off.