Swaying with the Verses

I had such busy end to November and the start of December with a lot of time devoted to the two special shows I recorded for NTS, find out about them in the radio shows section, and apologies for the lateness, time just flew past!

We’ve managed to reach the end of the year, so many gigs, radio shows and after listening to so much music. I think there might be a few newsletters this month, this one will be in the normal format of listings, review of last months events, radio shows and my gig list; then I shall endeavor to do a summary of 2025 and also those missing newsletters from June and July!

Quick Nav: Jump to sections with the quick nav links!
Listings / What I did / Radio Shows / My Gigs / Music Recommendations

Raga Music Listings— December 2025

There aren’t many gigs in December, I think January might be a little sparse too, but the singer Muslim Shaggan is doing a mini UK tour, so make sure you catch him whilist he’s in the UK. I’m also going to be doing a raga music listening session, more info in the ‘my gigs’ secions.

4 Dec 2025 / 19:30
Muslim Shaggan
Muslim Shaggan – vocal
Sands Films Studio, London
Book Now: £15

5 Dec 2025 / 19:30
Roopa Panesar: ATMA
Roopa Panesar – sitar
RN Prakash – mridangam, ghatam, morsing (Indian jews harp)
Giuliano Modarelli – guitar
Camilo Tirado – live electronics, textural percussion
Ben Hazleton – double bass
Surdarshan Singh – tabla
Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford
Book Now: £7.50-£45

5 Dec 2025 / 19:30
Orchestral Qawwali Project
Abi Sampa – vocals
Rushil Ranjan – composer, guitar
Manchester Camerata – orchestra
Factory International, Manchester
Book Now: £20-£90

6 Dec 2025 / 19:00
Kamalbir Singh & John Ball: Indian Classical Music
Kamalbir Singh – violin
John Ball – tabla
Open House, Hathersage
Book Now: £7.50-£45

7 Dec 2025 / 19:30
Music for the Soul
Mehboob Nadeem – sitar
Chloe Butterworth – cello
Hanif Khan – tabla
Mitel Purohit – tabla
Colet House, London
Book Now: £12

17 Dec 2025 / 19:00
Nāda Sonics IRL: Listening Session
Sway of the Verses – cdjs
Lake, London
Book Now: £free.99

17 Dec 2025 / 19:00
Kamalbir Singh & John Ball: Indian Classical Music
Kamalbir Singh – violin
John Ball – tabla
Open House, Hathersage
Book Now: £7.50-£45

21 Dec 2025 / 19:30
Muslim Shaggan
Muslim Shaggan – vocals
Satwinder Pal Singh – sarangi
Aman Pal Singh – tabla
Seven Arts, Leeds
Book Now: £5-£20

*note… I don’t make any money or anything from these listings, I don’t even get guestlist (although I wouldn’t say no to guestlist… gigging is expensive!), I’m just doing it, because people need to know where to see live music.

What did I see/hear/do in November?

November was a little crazy… there were a lot of gigs and events, so I’ll try my best to sumarise the month as it was so full-on!

My friend Zar was playing an opening set for Anish Kumar at Village Underground, the entire bill that day consisted of South Asian djs, with Izzi closing the night; there were no edits (iykyk), and it was a brilliant night, Village Underground was packed and the vibes were vibing!

The Dek Bass movement is something I’ve been seeing on socials and reading about for a few years now, so was very excited to see a screening of the Bass Boss film by Rana Ghose.

“Dek Bass is a form of extreme low end frequency deployment originating from rural West Bengal, India. As terrifying as it is wildly popular in the region, the form originated from the mind of one man: DJ Khobir.”

The evening started with a screening of Koi Hain a film by Nishant Shukla, following a man offering tears to a river, and insight into his process and philosphy. We then moved on to Bass Boss, a wonderful insight into this musical phenomenon emanating from West Bengal, with interviews with djs, sound system builders and devotees of this experience. After the film there was chat between Nishant and Rana about the two films, covering processes, the themes of the films and personal experiences during the filming. The evening was wrapped up with performances from Dushume and Dhangsha!

Saul Williams and Carlos Nĩno & Friends was a brilliant night. Three acts comprising of Pan Amsterdam, Elliot Skinner and Saul and Carlos as part of the Pitchfork Festival. Pan Amsterdam I’ve seen before and was his usual charming self, Elliot Skinner I’ve not seen before and he was a revelation, armed with a guitar, his voice, a set of brilliant backing singers he mesmerised the audience with his personality and amazing voice! Then the main act came out and the mood intensified. It was an electrifying performance with the audience hushed in concentration, listening to every syllable uttered by Saul, on the foundations laid by the musicians, Shabaka had a multitude of instruments laid out in front of him, swapping every so often and Carlos Nīno in the back, behind the line of chairs laid out for Saul Williams, Midnight Roba and the other two friends, (I should’ve noted their names down, but I’m still not in full journalist mode yet!) and Surya Botofasina on keys. It was an amazing night!

Also part of the Pitchfork festival, I went to see Nala Sinephro at the Southbank Centre, I have no photos, because the hall was pretty much pitch-black, apart from a few lights lighting up Nala and her band. I have seen her a few times and it’s always a joy and this was no different, the performance was a lot freer from structure than previous gigs with the band improvising for vast portions of the gig, recognisable tracks melding into each other to make one large singular expression.

Blackstar were in town… and they turned up with about 35mins left on the clock. The crowd were not happy. They told the crowd to lump it and brought out Blak Twang and Common and everyone was a slightly happier, they performed 25mins past the curfew.

Sanjiv Ahluwalia launched his new book “it’s better to travel”. This book is a collection of stories about writing and DJing around the world as a diplomat. “From working in an embassy to working behind the decks; from writing and researching a series of record shop guides to writing and researching for a radio interview as the Deputy Ambassador in Mongolia. The book is a series of 13 interconnecting travel stories through the lens of locals and written in the first-person in the present tense. You will be immersed in tales from 13 different cities linking a squat party in Hanoi to a graffiti artist in New York to a lock-in Paris.” Sanjiv has a show on Voices Radio and curated the evening with other members of the station djing or reading passages from his book. Marc Jenks, conducted an interview about the book with Sanjiv, delving into his processes, ability to recall so many stories with such accuracy, book design and disections of chapters, it was a very nice event and the audience really enjoyed the event, and I think Sanjiv sold lots of books. I’ll stick a link to the book down in the recommendations section so you can get one too!

I had the chance to play at Brilliant Corners, Emanative invited me and Cosmo Sofi to play with him on a Thursday night. It was a very geeky night, this wasn’t a gig, it was a hangout session with three friends sharing musical delights with an ambient theme… ‘no drums, wait drum kits’ was the order of the day, and we meandered through some beautiful music, not sure how the audience would react, but they really seemed to enjoy it! 🙂 A very rare all vinyl set from me!

Djrum was playing all-night at Earth Hackney. We managed to hustle ourselves to the front row and then watched the master at work at close quarters, three decks, one mixer, a number of record bags and a whole heap of dj magic. It was an amazing set, as much a dj workshop as it was a ‘gig’.

I played at the last Tate Lates for 2025, a different kind of set, Thristian invited me to take control of the video/vj station. Proceedings began with on-the-job training of how to connect a laptop to a Pioneer mixer, cdjs and projector to be able to output and mix videos like a dj set… there was a lot of reseting, pulling out wires, reconfigurations and head scratching trying to troubleshoot why no videos were being output… it seemed so easy in the instructions… It’s always something really simple and overlooked, as was the case for this situation. Once we got going, it was super fun, it took a little bit of time to get used to the setup, but after we moved through the Tate exhibition videos, and got to the video bag I had curated for the evening, it was really nice… there were people taking videos of the videos, dancing and engaged with it all. No compaints about it being too loud or about me playing horrendous music, so I think result!

At the end of the month I played at the Sauna Social Club, 4 hours of ambient vibes… it’s one of my favourite gigs to play and I really enjoyed it (you should definitely come though if you get a chance next year)! 🙂 And then like a nutter legged it from Peckham to Hackney to go see CocoMaria, Lefto and Mafalda at Night Tales. November was full-on!

Radio Shows — November

November was back to a normal amount of radio shows!

After a conversation with my uncle, the November edition of Nāda Sonics concentrated on Ragas helpful for Alzheimers/Dementia/Mental health, featuring a selection of helpful ragas from both the North and South traditions and commentary about the impact of music and ragas on the human brain. A part 2 is something that I’ll definitely be exploring!

The last Sister Midnight FM show for 2025, another indulgent session with lots of dark and atmospheric tracks!

I had the pleasure to curate some tracks as a guide to Qawwali music, 6 wonderful artists to give an idea of the breadth of this tradition, you should definitely sit down and enjoy this hour!

On The World is Sound this month, I had the pleasure to talk to Ziggy Zeitgeist and Lewis Moody of EX Generation and play tracks from their new album The Mumbai Exchange, an album they created with a whole host of musicians from Mumbai! It’s a wonderful chat the delves into the history of EX Generation and the process for this new album!

December Radio Dates

061225 - NTS - Nāda Sonics
101225 - WorldwideFM - Valentine Comar: Guest Mix
161225 - Voices Radio - The World is Sound w/ Sarathy Korwar -
Very excited to be chatting to Sarathy about his new album and musical journey since his first release!
281225 - G-Shock Radio - The World is Sound Takeover

My Gigs

12*12*25 — 10 Years of Catalyst: Catalyst Cafe, London
Catalyst Cafe celebrate their 10th birthday, super excited for this one, it’s a great cafe in central London, with a great evening planned!

13*12*25 — Awaaz presents: Rhythm Relief for Crisis: The Greyhound, London 
The Awaaz Collective comes together to fundraise for Crisis UK. We will be taking over The Greyhound in Peckham from mid-day to 11pm, with a wonderful selection of djs playing a wide range of music, two rooms and all in aid of the important work that Crisis do to help homelessness within the local community.

17*12*25 — Nāda Sonics—IRL: Listening Session: Lake, London
I’ve been lucky to have been able to do a number of dj sets centred around raga music over the past few years, the ones at Dancing Family Festival, We Out Here and Felt Sound System were stand outs. I want to start a regular listening session and bring the Nāda Sonics show to a collective listening space, where we can all sit down and listen to some wonderful selections for and hour and a half to 2 hours, no talking, no phones, no distractions. Hopefully we can do this once a month and provide an oasis of calm for everyone that appreciates this musical tradition!

The theme for this first listening session will be Zakir Hussain, he passed away a year ago on the 15th of December, so I thought a celebration of his music contributions would be the best way to start! The event is free, but you need to reserve a spot as places are very limited.

Music Recommendations

There’s been some really nice music released recently, The Mumbai Exchange by EX Generation is a wonderful album, listen to the Voices show from last month to hear the discussion about it. Sarathy’s new album has been in heavy rotation for the past month and sounds amazing, you’ll definitely have to tune in for the chat we’re going to have on The World is Sound next week! Released yesterday, Kaali Duniya’s album is a fantastic deep dive into a 140bpm sound coming out of Mumbai’s bass scene, ‘My Style’… is my standout track!

I’m throwing in a few music videos, Miltant Don by Mala Magugu is brilliant track, the video is so cool, black and white videos always look great! The new track and video from Mura Masa don’t disappoint, black and white again, really nice fun track with a lovely switch up in the middle!

The new K-Lone album, I’ve rinsed this album, it’s so good, really chill, but hype at the same time, really sonically pleasing! Nort Wess the single from Shy One is filthy, so many bleeps! Tranquilizer by Oneohtrix Point Never is lush, some many layers, textures and ambient sounds, there are some really cool visulisers on youtube/socials too. And finally the release from Moiré, vinyl only, very limited copies, definitely pick it up! Also… the new Sebastian Rochford album is so good; it sounds like an indie album, but then isn’t and leans into so many different influences, it’s indie, shoegazy, jazzy, poppy, hip-hoppy; all blended into this wonderfully energetic package!

Also, a book recommendation! As mentioned earlier my very good friend Sanjiv Ahluwalia has published a book “it’s better to travel” with a collection of stories about his time as a diplomat travelling to many different countries around the world, taking in all the experiences those countries had to offer, as well as djing and digging for records, it’s a wonderfully engaging read and the best advert to go and explore the world!

I hope you’ve had an interesting 2025 and hopefully 2026 will be culturally fulfilling too. Thank you to everyone that has subscribed and has put up with my inconsistent post schedule, it’s been a very nice year to experiment and work out how to deseminate the information about live raga music gigs, but also add stories from my month. I was quite hesitant about taking this on, as I haven’t meaningfully written anything for a very long time, but apparently I don’t seem to be awful at it, because of all you wonderful subscribers who haven’t unsubscribed and are still reading and clicking links, judging how much to write is one of the biggest issues I have to deal, but no where near as difficult as trying to find a photograph of me! I’m in building mode now, so hopefully I’ll complete work on my website and everything will become a lot more streamlined and useful! 🙂 

Sway of the Verses