MAKING MUSIC SUSTAINABLE
RECORD LABEL + ARTIST MANAGEMENT + EVENTS
24 - 26 May 2024, at Soulitude By the riverside, Chanfi, Uttarakhand
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The baithak, or ‘sitting’, is the traditional way in which music was and still is listened to in India. Musicians play for a small and exclusive audience, interacting with the performers. Only a very few people experience this in their lives however, and decreasingly so in our times, when musicians play to large audiences and are regularly on tour.
Here is a chance for one to experience an extended baithak over two days. The music comes from Rehmat e Nusrat, one of India’s finest qawwal troupes, led by the outstanding talent Sarjeet Tamta and their alter ego Himali Mou, a Kumaoni folk band (also led by Tamta). The location is Soulitude by the riverside, a place of stunning beauty nestled in a narrow valley and adjoining a river. Soulitude is one of India’s top rated boutique hotels and just the right size for the intimacy between musicians and audience.
Upcoming Tours:
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24-26 May 2024
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14-16 Jun 2024
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19-21 Jul 2024
Sessions include two performances by Rehmat e Nusrat and one by its sister band Himali Mou, which performs traditional pahadi music, set around workingman lyrics about everyday life in the mountains. Rehmat e Nusrat’s repertoire is the traditional northern Indian qawwali music which is said to originate in the Delhi of the 13th century under the musician-poet Amir Khusro (1256-1325).
This is the place, and perhaps the only one, in which this music can be enjoyed with this proximity and this purity. The result is sublime. The analog nature of the instruments, the harmonium and tabla for Rehmat e Nusrat and the flute and dafli for Himali Mou, shines through in the peaceful setting. Amarrass has put together a schedule that is both rich in experience and yet easy. The senses come alive at Soulitude, a few hours’ drive on the highway going east from New Delhi and away from the dusty plains.
Mr Tamta will also treat guests to a culinary session and a class where he will conjure up some of the quite unique food of the mountains. This baithak will reward those who are touched by it in ways that cannot be replicated in concerts, and it does so in one of the most beautiful places one will ever get the chance to visit.
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To book your experience visit musictours.in
VINYL REVIVAL IN INDIA
Amarrass establishes the first record cutting facility in India in the 21st Century!
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We are thrilled to set up a new production facility in Gurgaon, India, where we have been busy over the Record Store Day 2017 weekend, cutting our first set of records! Analog remastered albums by Barmer Boys, Lakha Khan and the Palestinian-American band Painted Caves were released at a 'Vinyl Revival' launch party on the 28th of April at Lodi-The Garden Restaurant in Delhi, and we plan to follow with a series of live concert recordings of Barmer Boys with Vieux Farka Tourè and Bombino from the Amarrass Desert Music Festival in 2011/2012.
While the initial focus and production will be on the Amarrass catalogue, and artists on the label, we hope to work with other artists in India (and elsewhere) to cut dubplates, limited edition copies of LPs/EPs and singles. Each Amarrass record is individually hand-cut on precision-crafted machinery imported from Germany and assembled here in India. All the album artwork and jacket design is also done in-house at Amarrass. Vinyl finally enables us to present our archive of field recordings, live concerts and studio sessions in high fidelity - bringing the listener closer to the natural sound captured in the recordings sessions.
Barmer Boys (Kesariya Balm), Lakha Khan's 'At Home' sessions, and Painted Caves self-titled debut album are now available in LP format at our online store, and small batches will be available at online retailers and physical stores.
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The Hindustan Times came over to visit our new facility. Read the story here, and catch a glimpse of the production process in the video below.
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