Barbican Centre played host to ‘Different Trains 1947’ on Sunday; an evening of music and film celebrating the 70th anniversary of Indian independence.
It was radical.
In what was described as “a result of an open-ended creative exchange between artists from the UK and South Asia”, and using the ‘conceptual and formal framework’ of minimalist master Steve Reich’s 1988 composition ‘Different Trains’ as a primary source of inspiration, Actress (Warp / Ninja Tune) and Jack Barnett (These New Puritans) traveled to India in search of clues for their work in-and-amongst the culture and infrastructure of the country.
The Standout performance of the night was by Mumbai-based producer Sandunes (Sanaya Ardeshir), who, alongside the utterly flawless drummer Jivraj Singh, drew upon her own family’s history to compose a piece around a series of interviews of her grandmother ‘as she narrated the story of my grandfather Adi Ardeshir’s arrival in Bombay from Karachi in 1945.’