Hiss Sound Taraf

Taraf is the name of this album, and represents the concept of resonance. In India tarafs are the sympathetic or resonating strings on instruments like the sitar, sarod and sarangi. They are tuned in the raga (scale/composition) that is performed. When the performer plays on the main strings, the tones of the raga are emphasized because the tarafs only resonate with those tones. Hiss Sound is the new project of Dutch musician Olivier Schreuder, who is also behind the Thai-Dutch collective Apichat Pakwan. For this first album he collaborated with four Dutch musicians who specialize in North-Indian classic music. Like Apichat Pakwan the music is at the crossroads of Western, electronic and Asian music, with influences of dub, hiphop and electro. Besides Indian instruments like the sarod, bansuri, sitar & tabla there are also electric and acoustic guitars, bassguitar and drums. In each track they interact in a different way with a wide range of synthesizers and drummachines, like the vintage analog Formanta Polivoks and the 909, to form gritty, bassheavy dancefloor-oriented grooves that move between traditional raga-structures, contemporary electronic music and comprovisations