EDM comes of age in Hyderabad

Two decades back, when Murthy aka Murtho Murthovic began his tryst with Electronic Dance Music, there were hardly a handful of nightclubs in the city and he had to buy his vinyl from London and get them bubble-wrapped and shipped.

Fast forward to the present: He is a successful producer and DJ with a nation-wide appeal good enough to headline shows.

Like Murthy, several home-grown artistes like Aryan Sharma, Nephra and Tatsama, to name a few, are making waves on the national and international music scenes.

That’s how much the Electronic music scene has evolved over the last few years in the city. Murthy, however, feels this is just the tip of the iceberg.

“As compared to other cities like Mumbai or Bengaluru, we still have a lot of untapped potential. There is a lot of upcoming talent from the city, so these are exciting times,” he says.

The hype surrounding the EDM scene escalated last year when popular DJs such as Armin Van Buuren and Tiesto played in the city. Since then the acceptance and popularity of the genre has been steadily growing.

Aryan Sharma, a popular city-based music producer and DJ, thinks this gives local producers a great opportunity to showcase their skills as well.

“Anything creative without hype will be just another filling in the crack. When an average guy, who would only listen to Bollywood music all his life, goes to a big production concert, he will surely be awed by the scale of it and it’s highly likely that he would go home and check out other music by artistes who performed. If he likes it, he will search for similar artistes and will eventually get to know about the city’s artistes and producers,” he says, adding, “This hype is good news for the Electronic music scene in the city.”

Musically, he draws quite a lot of inspiration from Hyderabad as well. He says, “When I sit down to produce music at night, I can hear the sound of the approaching train from a nearby station. I go there and capture those sounds. The inspiration is from everywhere in a sense.”

The role and support of music promoters and labels has also been immense. As Abhishek Maisekar, resident DJ at a popular nightclub and a music producer, says, “The music promoters have been very supportive of our work. They have allowed us to express ourselves freely and have also promoted our works so it reaches out to more people.” He also feels social networking sites have had a huge impact.   

Hyderabad has at least 15 highly skilled producers who have the ability to headline any music event in the world, says music promoter Raunak Vazir of Musicfx.

“Also, with several music events like Sunburn and Supersonic being successful, a huge crop of youngsters are turning to production with a lot more hope knowing that the risk factor is a lot lower now.”  

He feels the reason several such events are becoming successful is solely due to the city producers making the audience aware of different sounds and genres.  

Popular Bengaluru-based music producer  Vinayak Karthikayan, who frequently performs in city nightclubs, says, “Hyderabad is just settling in. There is a good crop of local electronic music producers and DJs here now. They are quite a talented lot. I’m quite confident that soon enough, some of them will make it big,” he says.