Midival Punditz

The Midival Punditz (Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj) are an interesting and unique duo of DJs and producers hailing from Delhi but who have been putting music out through San Francisco's great world-electronica label, Six Degrees, since 2002. For many reasons I think these young producers epitomize ‘Indian Electronica' and ably relate modern urban Indian identity to the rest of the world...

...They've described their events as ‘mehfils' - an Urdu word implying a gathering of people to discuss/share art. It was appropriate then that they came to Toronto last week for a festival which carried the motto "Music makes the world smaller"? and performed at an intimate dinner-lounge where they were personally quite accessible to the audience. The Small World Music Festival was founded back in 1997 to promote world music activity in Toronto by ‘presenting artists of the highest caliber' (http://smallworldmusic.com), and the presentation of the Midival Punditz was a first-time affair for the city.

After about an hour and a half of delay (and a couple of illegally-smoked cigarettes behind the stage), the Punditz began their DJ set slowly and, after about half an hour, quite suddenly launched into a heavy up-tempo array of dance-floor designed 4/4 beats (a la house/trance) and drum'n'bass. All in all, the quick-mix of electronic genres was quite danceable but seemed to tire most people out, and they opted to mingle all around the venue, nodding heads and soaking in the atmosphere of dim lighting, loud ‘ethnic' music and a multi-racial funked-out crowd; which is somewhat rare in Toronto, despite its large urban population.

I'm quite sure that a good half of the people at the Gypsy Co-op that night didn't know anything about the Punditz - the music they played, or where they came from. Nonetheless, even though this mehfil's performance was just a simple DJ set, the crowd pretty much filled this small venue and the atmosphere was sociable and friendly.

I left at about 2.30am - when Gaurav and Tapan put their last CD in its case, and there was still a small crowd lingering at the entrance/exit to the venue, which reinforced my belief that Toronto would be happy to welcome the Punditz again - hopefully next time for a longer gig that truly will be a mehfil.