SHRI
Shri grew up in Mumbai, India in a musically inclined family. Shri’s father plays the sitar, and his mother and sister play the Carnatic violin. He trained as a classical tabla player for about 14 years at Pandit Nikhil Ghosh’s school in Mumbai. Tired of the rigidity of classical music, Shri went on to teach himself bass, guitar and flute. His trademark instrument is one he handcrafted and designed himself – a fretless bass guitar suited towards his unique approach of playing bass with a bow.
Career
Having previously played percussion in Indus Creed, a leading rock band in India, and bass in the jazz outfit Azure Hades (with which he recorded an album), he moved to London in the 1990s and collaborated as a bass player, with UK based Asian groups such as Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and DJ Badmarsh (forming Badmarsh & Shri).
Shri toured for 5 years with Sawhney, which led in 1997 to Shri’s first solo album, Drum the Bass, produced by Sawhney and released by London-based label Outcaste Records. Later, Badmarsh & Shri produced two albums for Outcaste Records as a duo, Dancing Drums in 1998 and Signs in 2001. Shri released another solo album, East Rain, in 2005, with Drum the Bass Records. All of these albums mixed blended Electronica and Drum ‘n’ Bass with traditional Indian ragas.
Shri has also collaborated musically with theatrical productions – composing for Akademi’s 2001 ‘Coming of Age’ dance project at London’s South Bank, the Builder’s Association/Motiroti co-production ‘Alladeen’ in 2003, and Tamasha Theatre Company’s ‘Strictly Dandia’ in 2005.
In 2007, Shri released ‘Seven Steps’ with Drum the Bass Records featuring his single, Just for a Minute. In 2011, Shri produced and performed bass and bowed bass on the track ‘Quest’ with Vivek Rajagopalan on the mridangam and kanjira, and Embar Kannan on violin and vocals. ‘Quest’ was released by Folktronic, a sub-brand of Day 1 (Sony Music Independent). Shri is also a composer for theatre productions. Shri has also written music for a few Bollywood films…, and
Performance
Shri’s latest avatar, Shrilektric, was designed to suit live performances wherein Shri performs either solo as a multi-instrumentalist, or with collaborators. Shrilektric was premiered at Bonobo in Mumbai on 3 August 2011. The second Shrilektric performance took place on 13 December 2011 at Blue Frog in Mumbai. In 2012, Shri performed a 4-day 4-city tour in India. Starting 24 May, he performed in Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Pune. This tour was coordinated by Folktronic. Indiecision Staff.
High Profile Involvements
Shri recently wrote the music for Google Chrome’s video advertisement in India. This video won the Gold and Silver awards at the Goa film festival. It was short-listed for the CLIO 2012 awards in the category of Best Original Music. It was also short-listed for the Cannes Lions awards. He also scored Tata Sumo Gold’s latest video advertisement Shri was also featured in Season 1 (2011) of The Dewarists, on Episode 5, “Changing World” filmed in Jaisalmer, with Monica Dogra and Rajasthan Roots. The song Changing World was recorded. The Dewarists won the bronze medal at Cannes Lions 2012. The bronze was awarded in the sub-category – ‘Best non-fiction programme, series or film where a client has successfully created a reality’.
