Hi, I've been trying to find a piece of music by Nitin Sawhney that I heard a while back. It was an instrumental piece and I think there was a connection in its name to Mogadishu (or even the film 'Black Hawk Down'). All I can remember was that it was slow, possibly with a very bassy sounding string instrument.

 Any suggestions, or am I being too vague? :) Thanks in advance!

Ooooh............... that is a bit vague, yes...... Don't suppose you could just hum it for us, could you?

Actually, I don't know if he actually featured on this soundtrack, but you never can be sure!  Try listening to the track samples and see if the track that you are thinking of is there....

  http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/2814618/a/Black+Hawk+Down.htm

 

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Many thanks, Rae 27.2.11

I had a quick look at lunchtime (before my quota time ran out. I looked on the Amazon website and there was no mention of Nitin on that either. Some good performers on it though - Baaba Maal, Lisa Gerrard, Rachid Tacha.

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"We are all dependent on one another's gifts, to the extent that if someone else is damaged or frustrated, offended or oppressed, everyone suffers, everyone's humanity is diminished." ++ Rowan Williams

Thanks for the help so far - I've had a look at the BHD sound track and don't recognise anything there :/

I've found a flash piano-simulator and had a go at recreating the opening riff - http://musicfancy.net/en/fun/96?usermelody=034a58b536834a48a546836d4bc87a735d4b983a936a58a546735a38b546 * apologies for the awful timing (ouch it's painful to listen to) but hopefully it will sound vaguely familiar to someone :)

 * pressing spacebar starts playing the bit I recorded

For a moment there I thought that I was going to have to play Jingle Bells....... Dcruize, that's not a Nitin Sawhney tune but one written by another great composer of film scores, A. R. Rahman, no less!  Yes, I recognised it, inspite of your best efforts to disguise it as a bad piece of piano playing, and I reckon it's "Mumbai Theme Tune".  It appears on Talvin Singh's compilation "Anokha".  It opens with bansuri and then (2.14 minutes into it...) the strings come in with the melody that you're thinking of.... I could be wrong, of course....

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If you are reading this, you are reading some pretty archaic posts(!) Please would you read the following article and add your name:
http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com/p/stop-tsunami-of-executions-add-your.html
Many thanks, Rae 27.2.11

Ahhh Mumbai! That's brilliant thanks for your help, well done for identifying it so quickly from that horrible snippit of music ;) Well, that explains why I couldn't find it on any of Nitin's albums (I even checked for 'hidden tracks' at the end), though on the positive side I rediscovered many great tracks in the process :)

 Thanks again!

You're welcome.  That keyboard thing is a bit tricky to 'play' and get the timing right, even for a lapsed touch-typist.  I actually found it easier to whizz from note to note with one finger on the mousepad and another left-clicking like a manic telegram operator, to hit the notes at the right time....I wonder if there is such a thing as a virtual stylophone (and a virtual Rolf Harris). 

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If you are reading this, you are reading some pretty archaic posts(!) Please would you read the following article and add your name:
http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com/p/stop-tsunami-of-executions-add-your.html
Many thanks, Rae 27.2.11

Here is the track as it should sound http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvQbZNT8eeU&feature=related (enjoy)

Though I would recommend buying the album - the full title is Anokha Soundz of the Asian Underground

I shall leave before I start doing Rolf Harris impressions with a sheet of heavy card :) 

 

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"We are all dependent on one another's gifts, to the extent that if someone else is damaged or frustrated, offended or oppressed, everyone suffers, everyone's humanity is diminished." ++ Rowan Williams

.......and before I blow the dust out of my dig' and produce a noise that varies between the sound of a large  herd of terrified elephants, stampeding through a busy saw mill and the product testing department in a whoopy cushion factory....

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If you are reading this, you are reading some pretty archaic posts(!) Please would you read the following article and add your name:
http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com/p/stop-tsunami-of-executions-add-your.html
Many thanks, Rae 27.2.11

I just remembered there is a link between the album Anokha, and Nitin.  On Anokha there is a track by State of Bengal called Flight_ic408.  Nitin used this in the soundtrack to the film "The Namesake", appropriately enough when characters in the film were departing from the airport in Delhi.

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"We are all dependent on one another's gifts, to the extent that if someone else is damaged or frustrated, offended or oppressed, everyone suffers, everyone's humanity is diminished." ++ Rowan Williams