Repurposing the sounds of the subcontinent: Todh Teri serves up 'Deep In India Volume 8'

Indian re-edit specialist Todh Teri returns with the latest instalment of his hugely enjoyable 'Deep In India' series, this time alongside friends and fellow musical re-jiggers, Kone Kone and United Machines. The artist is ordinarily exceptionally shy of publicity, so you can imagine our delight when we tracked him down to discover more about the inspiration behind the music. In all honesty, we knew precious little about the artist behind the Todh Teri project. As we understand it, that's exactly how he likes it. Something we were always able to proclaim with a degree of certainty, however, is that Teri has made a habit of dragging his favourite sounds from the vintage Indian and Bollywood catalogue into the contemporary dance domain, adding shades of disco, house, and acid to the retro atmospherics.

After some seriously committed detective work, we're thrilled to be able to share some of Todh Teri's thoughts and considerations relating to his lovingly-crafted edits. "What inspires me the most is how the audience react to the edits in India," he told Mixmag Asia (from a secret location, of course). "The melange of their long-forgotten favourite tunes reworked with disco and house sounds, which brings the melancholy and excitement to the dance floor is something to treasure and helps me enhance my imagination and creativity." But it isn't just the audience reaction that inspires the re-imagined music, but often the process of digging, discovering and absorbing the source material itself provides the stimulus. "Every original I scrutinise for the right sound sample is in itself inspirational," said Teri.

The eighth edition in the series continues the solid work that preceded it with Teri and friends lovingly reviving classic sounds from the golden era of Indian cinema. Here, the artists skirt the line between editing and sampling, as clearly more work has gone into their efforts than merely cutting, pasting, and re-arranging the original tracks.

The EP begins with the highly energetic 'Sampadan 26', with its pulsing rhythm, bold arpeggios and driving chord stabs, you have to listen very carefully to catch a glimpse of the original sample track on this one. Next up with have Kone Kone's playful 'Sampadan 27', where atmospheric pads, cheeky synth licks and snappy drums join sultry spoken word and filtered horn samples. 'Sampadan 28' unfolds patiently as sample stabs evolve over a broken rhythm before fusionist jazzy refrains rise and the reverb-heavy sample teases in, bringing joyous energy to the track. Finally, the space-disco of Teri's 'Sampadan 29' collaboration with United Machines closes the EP with a blissful cocktail of soaring synths, four-to-the-floor beats and sample-induced nostalgia. This is great studio work from the mysterious Todh Teri project, evidencing an obvious affinity with the source material while displaying enough creativity to make the collection stand out from the swathes of less imaginative edits that have swamped rack space in recent years.

Todh Teri 'Deep In India Volume 8' is coming soon, you can pre-order here