-¢‚Ǩ-ìFor the uninitiated, the composer of this music is also a master craftsman who, throughout the 1980s, combined his off-the-wall ideas and sky high expectations using craft, experimental technology and a trusted team of participants to help concoct some truly bizarre local produce in mass quantity without compromise. Ilaiyaraaja, known to his family as Gnanadesikan, and to many of his zillion strong fan base as Isaignani (meaning musical genius in Tamil) represents the epitome of a nostalgic national treasure, especially for a single solo composer in the Tamil micro music industry. His euphoric electrified music of the 70s and 80s (and beyond) captures every essence of joy and jubilation and is still used in celebration as much as it is celebrated in its own right. A man of humble physical stature and sparsely equipped with a self-sufficient studio of compact electronic devices, Ilaiyaraaja literally commands celebration with his single-handed symphonies. Defying any fair comparisons in the Western world (besides inadequate parallels to Joe Meek and Jean-Pierre Massiera), it is also virtually impossible to find similar electronic mavericks in the East. Imagine a mixture between Turkeys Ilhan Mimaroglu and the acidic synthesizer ragas of Charanjit Singh and youre still left short of the songs. Essentially, Ilaiyaraaja is to the local Kollywood film industry what RD Burman/Bappi Lahiri or M.Ashraf/Tafo are to Bollywood and Lollywood, but then remember that Ilaiyaraaja is a one-man band, with a single vision and zero competition. This compilation reveals more tasty treats from B-Musics ongoing obsession with The Crown Prince Of Tamil Pop -- focusing on his growth in the mid-1980s as a confident young composer adding freak pop fuel to the flickering flame of Kodambakkams Kollywood film industry, while embracing domestic synthesizer technology and fusing the power of electro and synth pop to his Carnatic canon.-¢‚Ǩ¬ù - B-Music.
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
