Artist description A fusion of jungle riddims and Indian motifs.

Music Style Electronic, Jungle + Drum n' Bass

Similar Artists Talvin Singh

Artist History Tony Talwar and Sunny Singh known as T.S. Soundz, are dj’s, producers and, remixers from the South Asian music scene specializing in a cross-cultural blend of music from the east and west. When they started remixing, their goal was to make Indian music accessible to a younger generation of South-Asians. They remixed traditional Punjabi folk music and popular Hindi film songs with catchy house rhythms. Their work sparked a whole new generation of Indian-Americans to explore their cultural roots through the medium of music. Since the inception of their group, they have released over 10 albums: Hindi Remix 1, 2, 3, Bhangra Jockey, Return of the Bhangra Jockey, Chicago Bass, Desi Dance Party, Kick Back 1, 2, 3, and now Typhoon Asha. They have traveled world wide to perform in front of mass audiences. Their success and popularity in the Indian-American market have given them the impetus to explore the world music arena. They have recently finished an album called Typhoon Asha, in which they use electronic dance music and mix it with classical instruments such as sitar, dhol, and tabla. Vocals from a variety of musical styles such as Qawwali, Bhangra, and Raag emerge from this electronic euphoria that will appeal to both American and international audiences who are looking for a new listening experience.

Group Members Tony Talwar and Sonny Singh

Albums Typhoon Asha

Press Reviews Two of the Indian remix scene’s premier DJs recently visited the Westside to spin at Ziba Music’s Valentine Remix Extravaganza II. Prior to the event, Lil Jay and TS Soundz took some time out to speak with Jivan about a wide array of topics, including the state of remix music today and their future plans.Since you guys are always going around to different parts of the country, what do you think of the different styles? Is the East Coast totally different from here? Chicago, Midwest, San Francisco…Lil Jay: Muscially, some parts of the country tend to lean towards different types of music. If you go to San Francisco, it's mostly all Punjabi music. New York we have reggae, it's got Punjabi also. LA, there's hardly any reggae played. As far as the remixes go, it's pretty much the same songs, but the playing time is different. In New York there's also a lot of Latin House.Where do you think you get the most love? You're from New York, so would you say New York?Lil Jay: I don't know. It's pretty much a good response wherever I go. I haven't dealt with any negativity so that's been good.And you guys [Tony and Sunny], where do you get the most love? Chicago?Tony: Basically everywhere.Lil Jay: It always starts off in your home town and then you branch out. But you always get love when you come back home, you know? Like if I do party in New York, I still get people to come. Once you start Djing out of state, you're hardly ever in your home town, so when you're back it's like, "Oh shit, he's Djing? Let's go, I haven't heard him in a while"You guys play a lot bigger mix of music than many other DJs as far as hip-hop, bhangra, and other types. How do find a balance between such different types of music? Or is it just that you're feeling something for ten minutes so you play that.Tony: You gotta feel the crowd.Lil Jay: Definitely, when I go to Houston sometimes I play Indian music for more than an hour and a half straight. Once they're into it, you're into. It depends on the crowd and how much time you have to DJ. If you're allotted only an hour set, you want to get everything into that set.If it was up to you, would you guys play a specific type of music. If the crowd didn't care, would you still mix it up?Sunny: The whole thing is, it's come down to playing the same thing over and over again, every night and every party. You have the same routine and the same songs. If I'm in the mood to listen to Anokha that night, do you think the crowd would want that?Lil Jay: I would definitely mix it up. I'm influenced by so many types of music and the mix of music is what I like.Do you guys ever think about branching out into different types of music?Lil Jay: Definitely, most definitely.Sunny: It's pretty much come down to where the Indian music scene is practically decided by filmy songs from India. Being Asians growing up in the United States, we have heavy influences from all different cultures, various backgrounds from every aspect of life. And being Indian and American at the same time; the vast knowledge we have from both societies has come down to one point where we have to actually explore what WE want from music. We like hip/house, we like Hindi movie songs even if we don't understand the lyrics, but they're catchy. From that emerges a whole new sound.And we're trying to find out what that sound is. So people like us and [Lil Jay] all start to experiment with different sounds. Taking drum sounds from here and table sounds from there and mixing them and see what comes up with it.We actually have been working on a project since earlier this past year with that intention with our mentality, not being influenced by a lot of people outside, but what we know and what we think it is. We've finished marketing it. Tony of TS Soundz readying a sample for the next track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Being Asians growing up in the United States,we have heavy influences from all different cultures, various backgrounds from every aspect of life"-Sunny of TS Soundz-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that's what Typhoon Asha is?Sunny: Typhoon Asha is actually a combination of classical raag with aucoustic guitars in the back. From hard pounding bass to drum-n-bass, to ambient sounds, to the harsh synth sounds. Chanting and quawaaliis and bhangra. It's everything encompassed into one.It's something that has not existed before and not been produced in the United States. People in England have been experimenting and doing this kind of stuff for almost two years now. They have established labels. I think we're making the first attempt to do such a thing in the United States.Lil Jay: Which is a harder road for us because they have the outlets [in England]. They have radio programs, concerts, labels.Sunny: This is very much like OutCaste [an Asian Underground music label in England], but with a U.S. flavor. It's also harder because Indian people only want what they know.Lil Jay: If they can't recognize the tune or the melody, they don't want to open up to something new that quickly.That's probably why [Talvin Singh's album] "OK" isn't doing that well here. They really hyped that album up; you could find it on the front shelves of many Western record stores, it's not done very well.Indian Movie SoundtracksSunny: If you look at it, the traditional Indian song has changed since AR Rahman has come along. They're trying to Westernize their sound which it nothing close to what Western actually is. AR Rahman had an outlet where he had a platform where he could say "This is the music I want to propose to India now. We don't have that platform where we can jump off and say this is the direction we think it should lead. We don't have that type of platform at all in the United States.Do you think that now your name's established that it'll be a lot easier to go on projects that you really want to pursue?Sunny: No, the thing is that it's opened a venue where if I put a [TS Sounds] CD on the shelf, somebody will look at it. They'll give it a chance before anything else. Then they'll start looking at the titles and say, "Non filmy stuff?" That's gonna be another thing. Nobody has done it, so I can't say that it's not going to work. It's not been done, we're just going out there and taking a chance.If it does work, it'll change the whole scene.Sunny: It will make a lot of people coming up trying to do their own thing say, "Hey, let me try my hand at this." Look at DJs, before there was none, and now every city has so many.

Location Chicago, Illinois - USA

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