REINHERITANCE, by Varun Rangaswamy

REINHERITANCE

by Varun Rangaswamy

supported by

Mod It's a brilliant mix of genres east meets west vibe throughout. Anyone influenced by the great Ornette Coleman is someone I want to listen to. I'm glad I found this today. Thanks King Britt!
Favorite track: To Ornette - part 1.

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$7 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Comes in a Jewel Case and includes liner notes.

Includes unlimited streaming of REINHERITANCE via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 5 days

$7 USD or more

1.	Dakshina Stotra 01:51	lyrics	buy track
Ōm namaḥ praṇavārthāya śuddha jṅyānaika mūrtaye nirmalāya praśāntāya dakṣiṇā mūrtaye namah
2.	To Ornette - part 1 09:08	info	buy track
3.	wing joint alapana 08:52	info	buy track
4.	To Ornette - part 2 05:30	info	buy track
5.	guitar alapana 04:20	info	buy track
6.	To M.S. - raga kalyani 08:21	info	buy track
7.	To Aretha - alterity in reverence 10:19	lyrics	buy track
𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐼 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠. 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑦. 𝐼 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒. 𝐼𝑛 𝑠𝑜 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑡, 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒.

about

The album REINHERITANCE is a process of understanding, a way to see ancestral tradition as fundamentally about change. It deals with the idea that one of the ways tradition is simultaneously reproduced and radically transformed is through repeated acts of inheritance. It is a process through which I look for ways to engage with ancestral tradition that invite alterity.

In this album, I respond to three of my musical ancestors: Ornette Coleman, M.S. Subbulakshmi, and Aretha Franklin. Each of these responses is not only a piece of music, but also an act of inheritance in real time. I do this not by trying to recreate their work, but by offering my presence to theirs, creating a musical space that fuses past, present, and future. They are a part of my past, and I am a part of their future.

In REINHERITANCE, an entirely solo multi-tracked album, I play bassoon, mridanga, tenor sax, and electronics, and I sing. I also do noise improv on instruments I have no training on, like clarinet, guitar, and pots and pans. By responding to musicians from such disparate contexts with multiple recordings of myself playing multiple different instruments, I hybridize myself. I exponentiate my own voice, not to make it louder, but to make it varied, to make it different from itself.

By making this album, I want to show how I inherit, as all of us do, forms of music and ways of being multiple times through multiple different iterations of myself. Those ways of being are always changing how they come to me, and I am always changing how and what I inherit through the act of inheritance itself.

In my responses to Ornette, M.S., and Aretha, their spirits are present, but no attempt to respond to the past can be pure and whole; the past can never be fully recreated, nor should it be. The weight of time leaves gaps, generational movements create open space, and it is in this space that alterity finds its expression. REINHERITANCE gives voice to the alterity I am able to discover in the gift of space my ancestors have given me.

A portion of all proceeds will be donated to The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, the church where Aretha Franklin recorded her live album, "Amazing Grace," and whose members are now my lifelong friends.

credits

released October 19, 2022

Mixed by Varun Rangaswamy
Album Cover Art by Varun Rangaswamy and Priya Bhat
Mastered by Adam Gonsalves

license

about

Varun Rangaswamy New York, New York

As a Karnāṭak musician, bassoonist, improviser, and scholar, my work engages with the instability of cultural processes—like the formation and reconfiguration of identity—by deconstructing normative associations between sonic, visual, and cultural signifiers.

My music explores the compartmentalization, unification, and distortion of my identities to express my own multiplicity. ... more

varunrangaswamy.com

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Varun Rangaswamy

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

Varun Rangaswamy recommends:

Radical Acceptance
by Joy Guidry

Joy's unflinching resolve to stand in their truth and extend love to others makes their music some of the most powerful I've listened to. "Radical Acceptance" is truly a landmark of a work. Varun Rangaswamy
go to album
Of Agency and Abstraction
by Rajna Swaminathan

I find Rajna's approach to diasporicity, improvisation, and alterity so critical and compelling. Her album "Of Agency and Abstraction" is one of my favorite; I'm sure you'll love it, too. Varun Rangaswamy
go to album

If you like Varun Rangaswamy, you may also like:

field anatomies
by Laura Cocks

supported by 4 fans who also own “REINHERITANCE”

Composition in spite of traditionalism. A sonic abrasion and proof that contemporary classical music is interesting, engaging and intoxicating. jiristepan
go to album
The Reluctant Astronaut
by Max Devereaux & Hiroo Chubachi

featured on Bandcamp Radio Mar 7, 2022
go to album
Gestalt
by RAIC

An ambitious cross-genre journey from the Richmond Avant Improv Collective, who bring in 17 (!) guest musicians to fill out their vision. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 12, 2021
go to album
Hermetic Topography
by Zebularin

Stuttgart collective Zebularin create densely atmospheric pieces that meld digital noise with analog free jazz. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 23, 2021
go to album