Last Saturday saw the return of Jatrotronica with performances by Creature Comforts, Polaroid, Fahad Zaman & Fahim Imam and Ahsan Sajid, who goes by the name Big Machete.
“Big Machete is my stage name for the less structured music I make that I can’t fit into any neat boxes,” says Ahsan, who recently published his very first anthology of poems “A Fireside Chat with Lucifer.”
Saturday’s event, part of the three-day live musical performances hosted by Jaatra Biroti every weekend, began with Ahsan reading out poems from his own book, against dimmed lights and industrial music in the background that Ahsan himself has composed.
“I create sonic textures and soundscapes from field recordings collected from around the city, particularly the Sadarghat region which is a personal favorite for an incredibly lush, yet jarring sound palette,” says Ahsan.
“I don’t often do Spoken Word with these sounds, but I decided, along with Don Donadoni and Fahad Zaman that both the audience and the sound would benefit from doing something new.”
Indeed, this may be the dawn of a completely new kind of performance in Dhaka’s art scenario which, with Jaatra Biroti’s efforts to feature live performances since last year, has seen a refreshing new jolt.
“We have cliques around this city, poetry cliques, music cliques, and sub-cliques under these too,” says Ahsan. “This was a humble attempt at bringing the two together because I really believe that some great work can come out of the two mixing.”
You can follow Ahsan’s poetry and music on www.soundcloud.com/bigmachete
