Docking on Indian shores

An analysis of the ripples that will be caused by the arrival of world-renowned electronic music broadcast Boiler Room in the city

November 30, 2016 08:40 am | Updated 09:03 am IST

The year is 2010 and the place London, England. Platform Magazine editor, music aficionado and all-round entrepreneur Blaise Bellville has an idea that he doesn’t know will alter the course of dance music history altogether. With his friend, DJ Thristian Richards, the pair begin hosting midweek dance parties at a warehouse.

They called on a variety of underrated but supremely talented Londoners to perform to a crowd of close friends and associates. The DJ mixes showcased at the parties are recorded and hosted on Platform’s website as mix-tapes. But everything changes with one simple addition: a cheap webcam mounted on a wall. All of a sudden, these closed-off affairs are now being broadcast live to anybody in the free world with an Internet connection and a desire to listen.

 

Back to where it started

Those were the rather humble beginnings of Boiler Room. Six years on, the format has made its way from Belgrade, Serbia to Tulum, Mexico and nearly everywhere in between. Easily the most popular global brand associated with the proliferation of non-mainstream electronic music, Boiler Room even hosted its first music festival this month: a slightly ill-fated Boiler Room Weekender in rural Pennsylvania, which was shut down by the police with several attendees getting arrested.

However, its biggest announcement of late is the plan to open the world’s first virtual reality venue. Technology’s intersection with the DIY culture has paid out healthy dividends for those willing to take such leaps of faith. And in a flailing music industry, a masterstroke that combines careful, high-quality music curation with simple technology has made Boiler Room everything it is today. And it is big.

While Boiler Room brings music to your desktop almost too conveniently, it fails at conveying the exciting undulations of a high-energy clubbing experience felt largely through physical movement.

Dance music, after all, is body music before anything else. But that matters little because the Boiler Room is not a bonafide club night (for the most part). Instead, it lies at the intersection between musical discourse and its voyeuristic consumption. On a very basic level, Boiler Room has superseded simple consumption to become a global platform for music discussion and debate.

The proof of the pudding lies in the YouTube comment section of any Boiler Room video, one of the few remaining sparring grounds for impassioned fans of the electronic music culture, outside of a handful of serious music blogs, Internet forums and online publications. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also probably the most inclusive party on earth, even though most folks only “watch” this party via a low-bitrate Internet stream.

Seeking international validation

This week, Boiler Room finally makes its way to Mumbai with a broadcasted live show. On a bill headlined by left-field U.K.-techno stalwart Actress, are Bangalore’s _RHL and Oceantied, alongside Mumbai’s Sandunes. Held in partnership with Budweiser’s ‘What’s Brewing’ platform, the format sees an international guest (Actress) play tour guide and scope out the local music scene. Since the show’s announcement last week, fans of the broadcast have been jubilant. It does however beg the question: what does Boiler Room’s arrival mean for the culture surrounding it?

Nic Shepherd, musical director of Migas in Beijing and a steady hand in that city’s growing dance music scene, was present at a Boiler Room taping earlier this year. China, like India, is a late recipient of a stopover in Boiler Room’s world-hopping schedule. Shepherd felt the Beijing show was rather subdued, mainly because “there was so much hype surrounding the event that first night.”

He says, “I think people wanted to be part of a micro-historical event and maybe get their face on the Internet.” He added that while Boiler Room’s arrival seemed to have offered a kind of superficial international legitimacy for the local scene — which to some people is quite meaningful — the benefit of a Boiler Room appearance in the year 2016 is quite diluted compared to a few years ago.

 

History in the making

So are there then any real benefits for India’s electronic dance music community to draw from its first Boiler Room showcase? Indeed there are. First up, it is absolutely worth celebrating an immensely popular global broadcaster shining a light on our homegrown talent.

While India’s pool of electronic music performers and producers expands almost weekly — and there are sound arguments to be heard regarding who else could have made the bill — this is still a big step forward.

Provided that the world actually tunes in, Boiler Room will help get word out of a mostly healthy, forward-gazing community of artistes here in India. On one hand, it is unhealthy for us to look at a nod from Boiler Room as validation for years of hard work despite poor infrastructural support for music of all kinds. However, there’s no denying its appeal among an audience that has had no choice but to look mostly Westward for non-mainstream electronic dance music.

In a keynote interview at the International Music Summit in 2014, Bellville underlined the Boiler Room ethos. Stressing that show’s core niche was exploring and showcasing the under-served, it then grew into what he termed a “mainstream marketing opportunity for underground musicians” who wouldn’t have to compromise on their art. India’s nascent electronic music scene has been cementing itself in a unique fashion, teetering precariously between corporate hand-holding, bar sales and therefore, serious artistic compromise. And that is precisely why the three Indian names on the event’s bill make Boiler Room’s first outing in Mumbai a pivotal moment for the artistes involved and for fans of the culture.

The author is a freelance writer

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