A short talk with P.M. Tummala on the advantages of living in a big city, the evolution of the Self, recognized with the aid of music, and Indian traditions.
Diogo: P.M. Tummala, you fuse Indian music with genres from around the world, like Dub, Musique Concrète, and Tropicália. In contrast with Bollywood composers, your sound isn't as "westernized" and still feels exotic. Where does this desire to create such all-encompassing and "foreign" music come from? You're giving it birth from a cosmopolis (Chicago, Illinois).
P.M. Tummala: When I think about the music I’m most drawn to, it’s usually something that takes me by surprise and has a less formal structure to it. Dub, musique concrète, Tropicália, and many Indian traditions share this quality. Having been inspired by these transportive types of music, it’s only natural that they've crept into what I make. As far as making it in a cosmopolis, if someone is interested in diverse music and sounds there is no better place to be than a large city filled with ex-pats from around the world. In New York City and Chicago, the cities where I’ve spent most of my life, all you have to do is go out and listen.
Diogo: How does Abstractions in Meera differ from your previous work, Brindavan Mon Amour?
P.M. Tummala: Brindavan Mon Amour started as sketches of what would become the language for both albums. While Brindavan was more immediate, the songs on Abstractions in Meera were more thought out and a lot more time went into building them. The most obvious difference might be that many of the songs on Meera have beats and the sound world expanded to include Indian folk, dub, Brazilian, and jazz rhythms.
Diogo: What identities are you trying to explore in Abstractions in Meera? Would you consider them to be fragments of yourself?
P.M. Tummala: I suppose the core identity would be my personal experience as an Indian-American and the child of immigrants. I was also thinking about who I was at different stages of my life through the music I was listening to which tied into the music I remember my parents listening to. A lot of this music was playing in the background when I was a kid and revisiting it later in life brought out a lot of foggy nostalgia. This distance created some false memories along the way but I think all of these real and imaginary identities are fragments of me.
Diogo: What do Indian traditions have to teach us about Consciousness put to the service of art?
P.M. Tummala: Depending on how deep someone wants to go, Hindu concepts like Dharma and Atman, the universal self, often play heavily into Indian art whether it’s music, painting, sculpture, or architecture. But I can’t say that I incorporate these traditions in my practice.
Diogo: "False memories" can originate from the past as seen through "distorted" lenses. In this case, would you agree that there is no real past, only nostalgic phenomena taking place in the present? Your description of Abstractions in Meera makes me feel like you're trying to sonorize your memories, transforming them into a "movie".
P.M. Tummala: It's interesting to think about it that way. When I was making Meera it definitely involved drifting through a past where I wasn’t always sure what was real or not. About 15 years ago, I found a box of Indian records in my parents’ garage that hadn’t been played since I was a young child. I was flooded with memories but many of them were very hazy and, in a way, I think the album became a soundtrack to them.
Comments