Name: Aditya Jha aka Turqua
Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Producer, composer
Current release: Aditya Jha's new EP under his Turqua moniker, Memories of a Demented Turtle, is out now.
Recommendations:
1) Utopia UK (2013) is a British television series that I think everyone should watch.
2) Music by an artist named Bibio has deeply affected me personally through the soundscapes that he creates.

If you enjoyed this Aditya Jha interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, and Soundcloud.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Most of the time I see different types of movement. Colours with certain soundscapes have been associated in my mind. In a blues-jazz track I see the blues lines/melody as navy blue while the jazz/horn part as purple to give an example.

I do try to close my eyes but it happens very rarely, just because of the times we live in. To close my eyes while a million things are on my mind and just to go through the day has made it tough.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I started this journey by learning electric guitar just as a hobby because I was inspired by a local band named Anand Bhaskar Collective and thought that even I could learn to do the same.



As I came from a non-musical background it just never dawned on me that I can do this, too. This experience has just given me returns that are tenfold. It has also progressed my ear and made me open to sounds and music in our everyday life, which seems totally coherent on its own with its own rhythm as well as harmony.

If someone is willing to express that same feeling to others in the truest form then anyone can become an artist.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

I have always been around recorded music all my life. My father is a huge music buff of his times being very into Regional / Bollywood / Independent films from an early age and made me listen to a lot of diverse music of our country (India) as well as always made me explore whatever is happening without judgement which I appreciate.

Looking back, that has made it possible for me to explore a lot when the streaming era hit and I escaped the pop bubble of top 40 and legacy western music that was playing on television in my teenage years.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I create to share new sounds, events, history and exploration of our times with the limited breaths I have in this life. From innovative ideas in film to the use of sound design in that craft.

My own relationships with everyone I interact with in my daily life to shining a light on things that need to reach a wider group of people.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you describe the sound you're looking for?

Being true is my ultimate goal and well to even reach that point and go beyond is a long journey in itself.

The art that has affected me has this effect that seems like where I can shake the hand of the artist through the medium.

Which in turn makes both of us feel real and tangible as we are or where both of us are present on this earth at some point, irrespective of borders, languages.

Are you acting out certain roles or parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? If not, what, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

I really like metaphors and storytelling in general which has seeped its way into the music I make. Which always seems to be meandering and coming to a dead end but which is always rooted in some form of true imagery so you never know what is fictional and what is not.

My friends would ask me to stop after the 7th metaphor in real life. I am still waiting for the music police to do the same.

Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or perhaps the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?

I think it is all rooted in culture, The culture of the sound you are trying to imitate needs to be learned deeply to get an apt representation while adding your own flair to it. To have so many influences that nobody can put them into one box. Always evolving is the ultimate goal.

An example that comes to my mind is in the work of Radiohead who have always shifted their sound according to the times, while some misunderstand it rather than taking it for what it is: an experience of their own times.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness as things become more professionalised and how do you still draw surprises from equipment, instruments, approaches and formats you may be very familiar with?  

Just to understand one instrument has taken all my energy, from learning techniques to different forms of music, to understanding tone, timbre, rhythm there’s always something to adapt to.

On the production and audio side of things there’s always progress happening at lightning speed. New things coming from peers and online sources have always been helpful.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

At one point my ear made it possible to think of movement on all paths whether it be travelling long distances throughout my life, or long commutes to North Mumbai during my university years to observing a bee flapping its wings in a damp forest when I was in a boarding school during my teens.

There’s no one experience to tie it to, as I try to make it fresh just by always being exposed to different elements and sounds of music.

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in numbers, from waveforms via recommendation algorithms up to deciphering the code of hit songs. What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

If it is the only source of income then sure you need to worry about the numbers to eat. That is just the reality but nowadays everyone is trying to diversify through different kinds of work or working in different industries altogether.

Then it does not depend on the monetary gains of streaming numbers for survival and is much more about what do you want to express in this ecosphere.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

To be ever flowing like water is what I try to be.

Can the same be done in my music? Only time will tell.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold from your point of view? What role do headphones play for you in this regard?

It is a blessing. Just my recent obsession with sound in general has made me reach for my headphones less.

This creates a silence that is unique, real, and encompassing in everyday life which in turn makes me listen very deeply to my own surroundings.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

A lot of these mundane tasks done to a virtuosic ability always create a sliver of art in my opinion. Thus creating, reinterpreting, improvisation of any task is a beauty to see in its own right. For me, it is to get the same virtuosic ability of expressing without barriers in music where I am at right now.

Seems easy compared to me doing the same while changing a tyre of a vehicle for 10,000 hours.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values which don't appear to have any emotional connotation. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a seemingly counterintuitive way – and what, do you think, is happening here?

There is this continuous nature of humans trying to figure or understand things of any nature. This gives notions to the listener of what they cannot comprehend.

How can a love song in a foreign language still make its message known just by the intonation, timbre, and feel to the listener? How Astrud Gilberto does just that while speaking about nature has always been wonderful for me to listen.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Less or no gatekeeping in sonic spectrums as this art form itself has become so accessible to anyone, there is no basis to gatekeep a sound or genre. Unless made in bad taste which does come out of the music in my opinion.

More support for local live gigs specially In India for leftfield art in general is very much needed as listening in a live setting is always an experience and something to appreciate in the current setting of mechanical nature of this society.