ABSTRACT
Shrikanth Sirian is a classically trained tabla player, who relocated to London after a period playing bass guitar in an Indian rock band. Signed to Outcaste, Shri released his debut album Drum the Bass in 1997. Produced by Nitin Sawhney and featuring vocals from Meera Syal and the rapper JC001, Drum the Bass is a beautiful album that mixes together disparate influences in ways that sound unforced and natural. In 1998, along with Badmarsh , the pair released the album Dancing Drums, which was hailed as the definitive Outcaste release. While being a more dance-floor friendly album than Shri's debut solo release, Dancing Drums is still an inventive and powerful record, ranging from the duos' reinvention of Ananda Shankar's 1970s track 'Dancing drums' to the playful theme music to an imagined Bol lywood film 'The Asian Detective', on which Shri plays bass guitar and mixes. A second album Tribal, written and recorded with Badmarsh. was released early on in 2001 on Outcaste. As with Drum the Bass and Dancing Drums, Shri plays the majority of the live instruments. The duo performed material from Tribal at the London Jazz Festival in 2000 with the rapper U K Apache.
