I listen to OX7GEN’s EP Body Mechanics in Goa, which is perhaps one of the most ideal places to do so, while assembling chairs for guests at an art festival [ not the ideal accompanying activity to do so ]— and find myself quite intrigued by it. The EP is meant to defy the drawing of genrefic boundaries, as he returns to releasing under Fresh Air Records, post Stomp Noveau — “Once again, with a blend of trepidation and joy, I’ve curated a collection of four tunes that resist tidy categorisation. Creating Fresh Air Records was my way of fostering raw, honest expression with the intention of creating music that breathes with both novelty and soul”.Most of the EP is fun — it is created with the intent to get your groove on, and essentially dance to — and does not veer into the sit-and-consume kind of production.
The cheek of titling the opening track Loco Ono is impressive, and it sets the tune for the track — because it seems to have the artist smirking up at you metaphorically from his shrine of sound. The eponymous Body Mechanics, though, is the best track on the record — featuring what the artist calls an “intense duet between modular synth movements & frantic drum work, steadily building tension to a final release.” OX7GEN, for the music video of the same, has roped in the Footloosers, Kerala’s pioneering breakdance academy, founded in the late ’80s and regarded as one of the first breakdancing groups in India. Shot entirely as a project rooted in Kerala, the film stages a battle between members of the legendary OG crew and six of their top new-generation students, capturing a rare exchange between heritage and future on India’s dancefloor.Founded by Santhosh “Babu Master” Kumar, the Footloosers became synonymous with India’s underground in the late ’80s, blending martial arts–inspired movement with breaking technique and shaping a language uniquely their own. Their influence extends far beyond the cypher, with over 60 film credits to their name and a legacy recently spotlighted in the Malayalam feature Moonwalk. For Babu Master, the collaboration marked a fresh challenge: “As students in Trivandrum during the late ’80s, we taught ourselves by copying moves from Tamil, Kannada and Telugu films, before discovering VHS tapes from the West. That’s when we started adding steps from artists like Michael Jackson and Jackie Chan, and became one of the very first breakdancing groups in India. We’ve choreographed for many styles over the years, but the energy of Body Mechanics felt completely new — and our youngest dancers instantly took to it.” One can read this as Aditya Ashok, or OX7GEN’s attempt at a form of creating a cultural flux of sorts — integrating this historic repository of mainstream-departed cool into his own work that is meant to create the same impact.
One of my other favorites from this EP, is the lead single, Wild Thing, a speed househat track — and the artist twists the topline synth, lightly wringing it — and it is a good close, almost running in an anti-parity with the opening Loco Yono. It is refreshing, willing itself into spiralesque shapes — and an almost fade-out of signal waves. The best way to consume this EP would be to catch OX7GEN in a live set. In totality, this is not a record that provokes or dissuades you away from your pre-conceived understanding of his music, or dance music, but if I am to surmise correctly, that is not the intent either.
The artist uses a droplet tactic, putting in spectres of sound that he finds interesting into the bandwidth of what is more familiar and now digestible — which sharpens your ear in anticipation of the eventual choice to crack open the known, and recreate.
