Seasonal Affected Beats [@tbalani] drops debut project 2 ° (2 degrees)

2 ° is an exploratory soundscape from the mind of the talented Indian Jazz drummer Tarun Balani.

With the release of 2 °, India might just become the new home of progressive Electronic music . The project released by Tarun Balani under the Seasonal Affected Beats moniker is a five track outing with Tarun allowing instrumentation and production to take centre stage. Across the project there are only two tracks featuring a voice, meaning he tried to convey his messages across almost entirely non-verbally and he definitely had a lot to get across.

The project was born out of Tarun‘s desire to make music through the prism of his reality, formed by his experiences of the world around him. With so much discourse around so many things, just some of the subjects he wanted to explore musically were mental health, digital existentialism, climate change and there were more. Climate change became a key factor and is in part responsible for the EP being titled 2 °. The name derives from an initiative at the Paris Agreement in which 196 countries agreed to work towards keeping the increase of the global average temperature below 2 °C.

This concern with global wellbeing continues and is echoed, especially on the lead title track which was also a dedication to Tarun‘s niece Naima. But it serves more than the purpose of exploring global warming, on this track it also serves as taking accountability and responsibility to show future generations that the things that could affect them were being talked about. In his own words:

“The theme song is written for Naima, my three-year-old niece, and I wanted this to be a tribute or gift for her. I want to be able to tell her that I was talking about important issues back in the day too and that I was thinking about her and our collective futures – even through our music and art,”

Aside from its ideological inspiration, the project seems to take nods from a fellow boundary pusher in the Electronic scene, James Blake. The soundscape created across this project is reminiscent of the kinds of productions we’d expect of the multi-award winning English star. With that in mind, you should already be intrigued to see what the EP holds as describing it will never do it justice. If you’re a fan of the ‘lo-fi beats to relax/study to’ genre of sound 2 ° will be right up your street.

You can find the project as well as Tarun‘s other work on his website here.