The rediscovery of India’s first electronic music studio

Until the recent release of the NID Tapes , few people knew that India in the late 60s and early 70s had its own cutting-edge electronic music studio. The electronic music studio at the National Institute for Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India, was a short-lived institution that operated from 1969 to 1972. After its dissolution, it was mostly forgotten — until Paul Purgas (part of the duo Emptyset) got wind of the existence of the studio a few years ago and started doing research into its history.

Purgas ultimately unearthed in the archives a number of tapes that hadn’t been touched or heard by anyone for close to half a century. A selection of tracks from these tapes has now been released, alongside an accompanying book called Subcontinental Synthesis that provides more information on the studio’s context and history. There is also a BBC documentary about the NID studio featuring Paul Purgas called Electronic India.

The rediscovery of the NID studio shows that the history of electronic music is far from fixed, but always open to the possibility of new discoveries and surprises.

The context of the NID studio

The story of the NID studio is fascinating for both musical and historical and political reasons. One might think that an electronic music studio is not a highly political affair, but this story is heavily intertwined with the political landscape of the late 60s and early 70s.

The opening of the National Institute for Design that housed the electronic music studio happened in the context of India’s post-independence boom period. After almost a century of British colonial rule in India, the country was looking to establish a new national identity. The NID was a part of that and presented an attempt to locate a new and unique approach to design and all things related to design.

The late 60s and early 70s were a period when new, experimental educational institutions were popping up everywhere, like the famous Vincennes university in Paris that was also founded in 1969. Just like Vincennes, the NID was an attempt to produce a new kind of educational institution that was interdisciplinary and open to new forms of learning and teaching.

In this context, establishing an electronic music studio at a school for design was an idea happily welcomed by the NID’s leadership. Staying true to the idea of bringing together people from different backgrounds, the NID electronic music studio was also used for collaborative projects with film makers, artists and people from many other disciplines.

The birth of the NID studio

The electronic music studio at the NID was opened in close collaboration with the American composer David Tudor, who was at the time giving a seminar on electronic music in India. Tudor started his career as a pianist that worked with many of the famous post-war composers but moved towards experiments with electronic music in the 1960s. Tudor also helped secure funding for the studio from America and selected the studio’s equipment.

The studio’s centerpiece was a full-scale Moog modular system (this was before the Minimoog after all!), along with two Ampex tape machines. The studio was also equipped with additional gear typical for electronic music studios of the day, such as tone and pulse generators, ring modulators and frequency shifters.

(image taken from the Subcontinental Synthesis book published at MIT Press)

Indian Futurism

The composers and musicians at the NID studio were interested in looking towards the music of the future, just like those in Western electronic music studios. As the Subcontinental Synthesis book notes, it is interesting that, at the exact same time that the NID studio was creating cutting-edge electronic music, popular Western acts like the Beatles were also visiting India, but for wildly different reasons. They saw India as a way to achieve personal enlightenment through “ancient wisdoms”, instead of as a place where contemporary music was happening.

Seeing “the East” through the lens of a mythical ancient past and not as a place where real people are living in the present is textbook Orientalism, according to Edward Said’s definition of the term. As such, it is perhaps not surprising that the Western music world at large did not take note of the existence of the NID studio at the time. It was much more enthralled by the “exotic” allure of Indian classical music.

However, some cross-cultural encounters were more fruitful. Aside from David Tudor’s involved with the NID studio, the Indian composer and musician Gita Sarabhai got to know John Cage and taught him about classical Indian music, on the condition that he would teach her about Western music. She spent time in the US and returned to India with knowledge of cutting-edge Western music. The results of this exchange can be heard on Gita Sarabhai two pieces on the NID tapes that explore the connections between Indian classical music and electronic music.

The end of the NID studio

One of the more curious facts that emerges from the Subcontinental Synthesis book is that the expensive NID studio (a Moog modular and various tapes machines back when those were cutting edge technology!) was almost entirely funded by the Ford Foundation, which was a front group for the CIA. Such a connection is hard to imagine today, but this was the peak Cold War era, and the US was making large strategic investments in many newly independent third world nations in an attempt to ward off Soviet influence in those countries. A large part of the reason for why the NID studio was so short-lived is that the Ford Foundation pulled its funding out of India in the early 70s, after the country’s relationship to the US coldened.

But going into the 70s, there were also voices within the National Institute for Design that were increasingly critical of the studio. Just like in the European reform education institutions there was an eventual backlash against the reform approaches to education. Those that wanted a return to more traditional and “efficient” approaches considered an expensive electronic music at a school for design as wasteful and unnecessary.

Listening to the NID Tapes

What is above all striking about the NID Tapes is just how contemporary they sound. These tracks are much closer to what would happen if you put someone in front of a Moog modular today than the highly formalized European electronic music of the 40s and 50s.

Listening to the NID tapes, the spirit of rock & roll is clearly in the air. Instead of following highly technical and restrictive Serialist composition approaches, the NID tapes are mostly done in a “jam style” that is playful and experimental and doesn’t shy away from wild sounds and distortion. Just like we would today, half a century ago the composers at the NID were having fun exploring the world of modular, making patches and experiments, forming dialogues with the machines - just trying things out and seeing what will happen.

Especially interesting are the S.C. Sharma tracks titled “Dance Music” that almost sound like proto minimal techno from the 60s, reminiscent of Richie Hawtin’s 90s Concept 1 series done with a Serge modular.

Overall, the NID tapes are testament to the open-minded and experimental spirit that was inhabiting the NID studio. It is fascinating to dive into this unique and previously unheard part of electronic music history now, fifty years later. Despite their age, the NID tapes are decidedly contemporary.

Listen to the NID Tapes over at Bandcamp.