Kabir finds a new sound in Bengaluru

R Prashanth Vidyasagar
Nobody asked for a 15th-century mystic poet to get the electronic treatment. And yet here we are — and it works remarkably well. The Sadho Project takes the poetry of
Kabir Das, whose verses have echoed for centuries through dargahs, village courtyards and concert halls, and places them within a world of electronic soundscapes, found sounds and live percussion. The result is an intriguing musical experience in Bengaluru right now — no small feat in a city that never seems to run out of creative surprises.

The ensemble brings together singer-producer Vivaswath Rao, vocalists Kusumitha Vasanth and Roopini Ravindran, music technologist Aditi Bharatee, and percussionist Anirudh Sharma. “We have different interests but also aligning interests. We try to find the Venn diagram where everything meets, and then it just comes out from there,” says Bharatee. Spend a little time with the musicians and you quickly realise their curiosity extends beyond music. They are thoughtful without being pretentious, reflective without becoming overly philosophical.

The show, Songs of the Seeker, takes its name from Kabir’s frequent use of the word sadho, meaning seeker. The sound of a spinning charkha becomes a rhythmic pulse. Bird calls dissolve into electronic textures. Sharma’s kanjira work adds unexpected layers that shift between grounding and disorienting the listener.

“We want to almost physically transport you to the world that Kabir is trying to create. The words themselves deliver so much, but through the electronic elements and sound textures, we want audiences to experience that world more immersively,” says Ravindran.

That immersive quality is also why no two performances are exactly alike. “We have repeat audiences, and we ask them, ‘Don’t you get bored?’” says Vasanth with a laugh. “They always say no. Every time, it feels like a completely new concert,” he adds. Kabir spent his life reminding people that the answers they sought were not somewhere outside themselves but within. There is something fitting, then, about a group of contemporary musicians looking outward — through centuries-old poetry, electronic
experimentation, and everyday sounds — and arriving at something that feels unexpectedly fresh.


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