Probably not a Bret Easton Ellis reference…
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[6.50]
Anthony Easton: When I was in high school, whenever the Mormon dances were in Millwoods, all the other suburban white kids (and the audience at Mormon dances in Edmonton suburbs were pretty much all suburban white kids, though the suburbs were not always white), would get their snacks at the seven eleven, and I would walk a few blocks further and go the indie convenience store that was run by a couple from Northern India. Not only did they have amazing snacks, they had these c90 mix tapes of Bhangra by the counter for a couple of bucks a piece. I would buy them and listen to them at home after four or five hours of the dance’s sanitized pop music. I think it made me love music more. I have no idea if Panjabi MC is bhangra, but the track reminds me of the adolescent beginnings of my hipster childhood.
[7]
Kat Stevens: This is the song I heard playing from the soundsystem in the butchers next to Dalston Kingsland station on my way home from work tonight! I was kind of narked when the bus came before it finished. The butchers used to have this toy sheep on the counter that wore sunglasses, but it’s gone now.
[7]
Brad Shoup: It’s got swag. Not as much as these guys, but how would that be possible?
[6]
Iain Mew: My initial reaction to this was that it sounded like “Mundian To Bach Ke” with added weak gestures to dubstep. Since I don’t listen to a whole lot of bhangra, I figured that this might be a reaction born of genre ignorance and a few common elements which I’m just not used to hearing. After a quick crash YouTube course in his other stuff (“Moorni” is really nice) and other stuff alongside “Bari Barsi” in the UK Asian chart and the whole range of other exciting ideas in those, I’m hesitantly willing to suggest that yes, maybe it really does sound a lot like “Mundian To Bach Ke” with added weak gestures to dubstep.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m blurbing this on zero sleep; at 6 a.m. I figured it’d never happen and trudged to the store for coffee that wore off by the time I got back. Three separate sorts of caffeine in periodic doses over the day are failing to keep me awake. This still makes me need to dance, or at least lurch my inert torso in some imitation. I’m too tired to assess the track’s authenticity, but surely that constitutes success.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: Hardcore bhangra banging, says someone who could reliably identify a grand total of one other bhangra song, not coincidentally by the same guy. (That someone is me, for clarity’s sake.) Other than Ashok Gill’s fluid singing, the only sounds are ferocious beats and wiry, piercing tumbi notes. It moves, which is of primary concern to me right now.
[7]