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Heads and Tales

by Tinctures

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Comes in a matte finish digipak with high quality glass-mastered CD and includes high quality digital download of the album.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heads and Tales via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.
World 1–1 05:34
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"...a poignant sense of acknowledgment of everything that’s changed in the wake of the pandemic..." –Rolling Stone India
2.
Uncharted 06:15
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3.
Samhiβ 03:15
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4.
Tag 03:10
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5.
See You In Berlin 04:46
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6.
Trees 04:16
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7.
Grasshoppers 03:18
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8.
Oranges In Winter 00:57
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ORANGES IN WINTER Orange burst winter sunrise Spurting cold succulence Momentarily immensely sweet The radio’s prickly static Jarringly distorted Makes tranquility complete Urmila Mahajan January, 2019
9.
Simple Machines 05:58
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10.
Send In The Clowns 02:47
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11.
Dewdrop 06:13
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DEWDROP Every life is an intake of breath in the corridors of humanity. Within unfolds the experience of ancestors; a stirring that churns the present Every moment is more splendid with the awareness that like a drop of dew I can only be certain that I am here now. Urmila Mahajan
12.
Boundless 02:52
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BOUNDLESS When all turmoil ends Within And Without The mind speaks with Simple Clarity Intimately connected To Boundless Space Rising above existence Life Or Death The difference ends Urmila Mahajan Aug 2003
13.
Man And His Shadow 03:10
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There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps that he determined to get rid of both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them. So he got up and ran. But every time he put his foot down there was another step, while his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty. He attributed his failure to the fact that he was not running fast enough. So he ran faster and faster, without stopping, until he finally dropped dead. He failed to realize that if he merely stepped into the shade, his shadow would vanish, and if he sat down and stayed still, there would be no more footsteps. –Chuang Tzu
14.
20,000 Leagues Under 03:18
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15.
Serpentine 03:17
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about

"...an important new record in Indian jazz lore..." —Rolling Stone

On August 7 2021, Subcontinental Records released 'Heads and Tales', the first studio album of eclectic Indian piano-guitar duo, Tinctures – a series of fifteen immersive sound-worlds.

Tinctures' intimate chamber-music can be described as a confluence of Hindustani and Carnatic, jazz and European classical music and has a distinct aesthetic that is neither traditionalist nor modern, embracing the infinite possibilities that emerge through the meditative involvement of interacting freely through music.

What drives the Bangalore-Berlin duo is a mutual love for creating sonic narratives unbound by traditional ideas of consonance and dissonance, rhythm, or structure. "I enjoy making music with Nishad because there's room for all kinds of sound. He receives anything I play and frames it in a way that lets us travel further in that direction," says Aman.

Playing this kind of music can be likened to venturing out into the wilderness, and a good travel partner makes all the difference. Nishad elaborates on their collaboration: "The friendship to me is as important as the musical connection. A lot of what we do is improvised music and it relies on trust and shared sensibility. We have to get along and like the person we’re working with."

'Heads and Tales' is concept-based, with many of the tracks forged through processes of gameplay—musical creation within the parameters of certain rules—and many others drawing on ideas from beyond the realms of music, exploring visual, literary, conceptual, philosophical and spiritual themes.

'Simple Machines' peers into a mechanical world where piano and guitar interact like gears and pistons. Sometimes they converse politely, at other times all semblance of law and order breaks down completely. 'Trees' provides a hauntingly exquisite underscore to an image by renowned photographer Raghu Rai, while '20,000 Leagues Under' evokes quite a different landscape: the alien territory of the ocean floor, with piano chords splashing over grungy, sodden textures from the guitar, echoing the hazy deep.

The anguish of inner turmoil and its emancipation through lucid clarity are explored in the improvisations 'Man And His Shadow', inspired by a Taoist parable, and 'Boundless', based on a poem by Urmila Mahajan. There are also moments of humour and irreverence—‘Send In The Clowns’ is a zany respite from the intensity of studio recording.

Piano-guitar duos are not very common, as the two instruments often share similar roles within a musical ensemble. The duo uses this to their advantage; there are moments on 'Heads and Tales' where it's unclear even to the performers exactly who's playing what, like in 'Serpentine', a meandering lullaby for a snake, where the surreal ending is shared piecemeal between the two instruments.

'Dewdrop', also based on a poem by Urmila Mahajan, is a meditative sound-world set in Calcutta—a city where Nishad has lived and Aman has roots—connecting the 'experience of ancestors' to the certainty of the present moment, with the idea that '...like a drop of dew / I can only be certain that / I am here now.' "We've both spent years exploring different kinds of music", says Mahajan, "but when we come together, we're always playing the music of the moment."

credits

released September 18, 2021

composed, improvised and performed by
Nishad Pandey and Aman Mahajan
2016–2019

recorded by Vishnu Namboothiri
Krimson Avenue Studios, Madras
January 2019

mixed and mastered by Sebastian Ohmert
Sonic Impulse Studio, Berlin
August 2019

Calcutta photography by Shailpik Biswas
layout design by Arun N

license

all rights reserved

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about

Tinctures image

Tinctures Berlin, Germany

exploring the nature of consonance and dissonance on the piano and guitar

Aman Mahajan (p) Bangalore

Nishad Pandey (g) Berlin

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