Musically Train-ed

DJ and music producer Vinayaka has mixed sounds from daily life with experimental electronic beats for his debut album

The title track, Lonesome Train, starts with an announcement of the arrival of a train in three different languages, as deep electronic beats build up in the background. The song features an amalgamation of sounds from the railway station and the music from a night club, the things that music producer and DJ Vinayak Karthikayan, popularly known as Vinayaka, is passionate about. Ready with his debut solo album titled Lonesome Train, that is lined up for a worldwide release on October 21, he is excited about his performance in the city at Swig Bar and Eatery on October 12, where he will be giving the city-audience a curtain raiser to his album.

"Ever since my childhood days I have been travelling a lot in trains across the country. I have always been fascinated with the sounds I heard on the platforms and on the journey as well. Music is meant to take the listeners on a journey, so I decided to take my listeners on a train journey through my music," says Vinayaka, who has been in the music production circuit for a decade. If not a musician, he says, he would have definitely been an engine driver.

During the early days of his career as a music producer, Vinayaka started video recording these sounds on a digital camera, as he was not financially-equipped to purchase other high-tech equipments. He would use a software to extract the sounds from the video recording and use it in the music he produced. The sound-tripper began the sound collection for his album four years back.

Vinayaka's aim in mixing these 'daily sounds' in the electronic soundtracks is to bring about a string of connection to the novice audiences of electronic music. He has used sounds that make a listener relate to the hustle-bustle of daily urban life, like the honking of a taxi, the buzz in the airport and more. For one of the songs he even used a sound made by an air conditioner and water dripping from my bathroom. Out of the 30 songs that he has produced in this fashion, Vinayaka has selected only ten to list in his album. "In electronic music, it is only the sound that one can connect with. So to bring about this connection more easily, I have introduced familiar sounds in my tracks," explains Vinayaka. These familiar sounds, he says, add a natural realm to the otherwise synthetic music.

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