Subcontinental

SF's south Asian collective Dhamaal Soundsystem keep moving with their own brand of tablatronic urbanism.

By Marke B.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN a club night spawns records?

On the one hand, you've got juggernauts like London's Ministry of Sound, whose blowsy, overextended, seemingly weekly releases cover every base imaginable: bland "name" DJ mixes, clubgoer-polled favorites compilations, double-CD year-in-reviews, "The Club Sound of Now!!!" hysterics. The once-venerable bastion of House Nationals (anyone else remember when Ministry's surround-sound THX speaker system with multiple suspended mini-tweeters was all the international underground news?) has spun itself into a liquid mishmash of stale, unbelievable hype.

On the other hand, there are the single-minded underground tactics of clubs like the Bay Area's own Bootie, which doles out complimentary, uncredited, home-recorded "Bootie-leg" mashup collections to its first 100 or so paying guests every other week, simultaneously raising its copyright-infringing street cred and more than a few incredulous eyebrows. (Current SoundEdit technology is surely a wonder, but the polished, prolix output of Bootie's mixers must be screwing over some poor, nameless tech-heads somewhere, one often hears thought aloud.)

And then there are SF's south Asian wunderkinder Dhamaal Soundsystem (www.dhamaalsf.com), who've just released Transitions (Dhamaal), the follow-up EP to their 2004 hit LP, Dhamaal Soundsystem (Surya Vault). Like important, commercial-minded sound systems before it, Dhamaal take dub culture's cut-'n'-paste soundscape as their starting point, but they're well schooled in sound-system history lessons, managing to absorb the good and transcend the bad of predecessors like Dubtribe (good: maintaining underground cachet through a steady stream of dance floor-focused releases and live technical effects; bad: failing to anchor themselves physically or philosophically to any one club or movement) and SoulIISoul (good: developing a cohesive audience by taking racial resistance as its theme; bad: too many rotating members and too many bloody awful records).

Dhamaal keep it nice and tight by maintaining a regular home base, Dhamaal at Club Six, and a generous emphasis on tabla-driven, sitar-twanged electronica that encompasses all the musical inflections of the Bay Area's huge (and, club-wise, underserved) south Asian population – and those of us who love them. Dhamaal already have six years of popular underground cred to burn (the first Dhamaal house party, in 1999, was spectacularly busted by the police, a crowd of hundreds chanting "More! More!" from the sidewalks) and are now an established name not only stateside, but in Asia as well, selling tens of thousands of copies of their first release in Japan alone (and hitting the top-20 iTunes electronic chart worldwide).

The sound system is the brainchild of DJs/producers/songwriters/artists Janaka Selekta and Maneesh the Twista, who work closely with a regular roster of local and international south Asian movers and shakers to ensure their multimedia presentations and musical releases retain an instantly recognizable vibe. They've used money from their club to help support AIDS awareness in Ghana, provide earthquake relief in India, and fund education efforts for the children of impoverished Calcutta sex workers. Mayor Gavin Newsom even proclaimed March 17, 2004, "Dhamaal Sights and Sounds Day," in honor of one of their all-day outdoor festivals. Dhamaal Soundsystem certainly know they have a prodigious fan base. "We're incredibly fortunate to have had the support of a really dedicated audience from day one," Janaka told me as he rushed to prepare for his first opportunity to DJ at Burning Man.

The hook, though, is that Dhamaal's audience may not quite know itself. The south Asian-themed clubs I've attended in London and New York seemed full of glamorous recent immigrants eager to shed their old-country stereotype by aggressively funneling centuries-old traditional music into confrontational urban beats: a sort of upscale, strobe-lighted, bongo-and-bass scene. But at each Dhamaal event, Club Six is packed with a random consortium of wide-eared seekers, a Rough Guides assortment of exotic-vinyl tourists: B-boys racking up hip-hop-flavored frequent-flyer miles (witness the recent Black Eyed Peas smash appropriation "Don't Phunk With My Heart" or the success of M.I.A.'s bhangra-tinged prog rap), rave Rastafarians showing out vanilla-flavored cultural empathies, third-gen Bangladeshi grad students carving out their own hip enclave through shared (if somewhat manufactured) nostalgia, and that one dreadlocked, large-hipped white lady in a sari who probably has every odd herb known to man bottled up in her healing chest. Everybody's going on a personal journey of discovery.

No matter; it's a blast. If the crowd wants a mystic, tech-enhanced trip to its forgotten roots, Janaka and Maneesh happily provide. Where else can you see a radical faerie on mushrooms jerking dervishly to live mrindangam, pahkwaj, and sangeet harmonium while downstairs a pleated-khaki crowd of first-term internists shimmies beneath billowing hi-def projection screens? Not to mention the powerful politics-transcending dance-floor magic on display, allowing descendants of Indians and Pakistanis, Tamils and Sri Lankans to throw down together in peace.

Janaka and Maneesh are also careful to have a specific destination for their parties in mind. "We want to make sure to keep incorporating the latest urban elements into our music and performance, to really see where we can extend this music whose origins are thousands of years old, but whose future is rapidly being mapped onto the modern cityscape," Janaka explained. "Our upcoming, massive Worldly at 1015 Folsom will feature not only the MIDIval PunditZ, New Delhi's most forward-thinking electronic ensemble, but also Asian-fusionists Cheb I Sabbah and Karsh Kale going tablatronic, live Sufi music, MC Colonel on the mic, and our first-ever presentation of a bhangra break-dance troupe."

The new Transitions bears that urban-direction dedication out. While the rhythmic disparities aren't as expansive as those on Dhamaal Soundsystem, hard-driving beats are skillfully undercut by booming, erratic bass lines and sprinkled with snippets of Hindi rap and heavily modulated, traditional-sounding melodies. The opener, Dhruva Ganesan and Janaka's "Twilight Creeper," shivers with broken drops and cosmic female vocals, while Maneesh and Jethro's "Echotwist – Frankie's Next Move" is a spring-box of sitar and Massive Attack-like flow. The third track, Janaka's "Bol Breaker," breaks out into a curry-flavored quotation from JJ Fad's rap classic "Super Sonic," while the closer, Dhruva's "Z Motion," makes no bones about its rave roots, even as it floats some serious tabla and three-bar shehnai samples over the pounding 808s.

A dedication to underground experimentalism with an eye toward quality commercial releases: Can't beat that with a bhaat.

Dhamaal takes place every last Saturday of the month, 10 p.m.-3 a.m., Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. $10. (415) 531-6593, www.clubsix1.com.

'Worldly,' the Dhamaal massive, takes place Sept. 16, 10 p.m.-6 a.m., at 1015 Folsom, SF. $10-$20. (415) 431-1200. www.1015.com.