Ash Chandola
As the man behind the internationally acclaimed Swaraj club nights, musical impresario Ash Chandola has an impressive 12 year record in live music event programming, production and marketing. In recent years he has also established Swaraj Music as an artist management agency and is the man behind the rise of flute beatboxing innovator Nathan 'Flutebox' Lee (recently hitting the top 20 in the Guardian's Viral Video charts ). |
Ash has also worked as a consultant for arts organisations as diverse as The Great Escape convention, British Council, PRS Foundation, London Mela Festival and Croydon Clocktower arts centre. Recently his work has focussed predominantly, but not exclusively, around Alternative Asian artists based in the UK and in India - where he has been touring artists for the past seven years. In this time Ash also completed his own journey from promoter through to DJ, artist and finally manager.
Since it's birth at the legendary Blue Note club in Hoxton Square, London in 1997, Ash has developed Swaraj into one of the longest running leftfield music events in the UK and a brand with a reputation for high quality, innovative collaborative work and high production values. Swaraj events have taken place regularly across the world in India, South Africa, Italy, Canada, U.S, Venezuala and Mexico, and have played a major role in launching the careers of BBC Radio 1's Bobby Friction and Shiva Soundsystem.
Reflecting Ash's own artistic tastes and heritage, the Swaraj brand remains musically eclectic and increasingly cross-disciplinary in its nature as it moves away from its dance music roots under the influence of the UK Hip Hop, Beatbox and Indie scenes.
Ash is one of the 8 producers selected to participate in the London pilot of New Music Plus... Through this scheme he has undertaken a placement and co-production with the Southbank Centre, which has resulted in the following gig:
Southbank Centre and Swaraj Music present...
Nathan 'Flutebox' Lee and Guests Live @ The Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
Friday 25 September 2009, 7.45pm
Flute beatboxing innovator Nathan 'Flutebox' Lee and friends take over the Purcell Room on a night of music, dance and VJing featuring collaborations with artists from the UK and India, hosted by the irrepressible Howard Marks.
With his trademark live fluteboxing (beatboxing through the flute while playing it at the same time!) Nathan’s explosive blend unites Beatbox, Hip Hop and Breakbeats with Indian Classical, Jazz and Funk melodies, taking live acoustic performance and urban music into uncharted waters.
It's Hip Hop but not as we know it!
Tickets cost £15: Click here to book tickets.
Here's what Ash has been listening to:
Reggie Watts: A flight of Reggie Watts: Episode 1
Reggie deserves to be as massive as his hair. I saw him perform with Beardyman recently...and he stole the show! Comedy, beatboxing, spoken word and something else I can’t quite put my finger on...hmmm.
Last Mango In Paris: Jerusalem
Catchy with great lyrics laced with cultural references. Starts with the memorable line “In the 1980s our runnings they were Fun Boy we were Specialist “. Last Mango is the cool modern history teacher I never had at school. Watch this space.
Franz Ferdinand: No You Girls - Trentemoller remix (Domino)
Dark and long, wonderfully moody and cheeky at the same time - an unusually happy marriage of Indie and Electronic music. Trentmoller manages to make a big chorus sound even bigger with an old school piano onslaught...aaah,takes me back to my raving days.
Amadou et Mariam: Welcome To Mali (Because Music)
Released last year but I still can’t stop listening to it. Wonderfully uplifting, beautiful songs and a great live show, A&M are doing all sorts of surprising and welcome things with World Music.
The Undertones: You’ve Got My Number’ (Cooking Vinyl)
I’m generally discovering the post-Punk music for the fourth time in as many decades at the moment. Note to self: must do it more often.