Visions from the Underground: British Asian Sonic Culture on Film + discussion
Friday, October 2, 2026 · 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Defining the Asian Underground has always proved a tough task. Was it a movement? A genre? A youth culture? A self-defined collective of practitioners and spaces? A nebulous web of overlapping sounds, people, experiences and outlooks? And was it ever really underground?
This much we do know: during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, new sonic forms and club spaces emerged from, and for, South Asian people in Britain. From Club Kali—a queer club night founded by DJ Ritu that originated from the South Asian LGBTQIA+ organisation Shakti—to Talvin Singh’s Anokha—a crucible of ephemeral cool in late 1990s Hoxton where young British South Asians danced alongside a multicultural cohort of East Londoners, as well as the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Aphex Twin, and Björk—the second generation was appropriating and transforming dominant musical forms, formulating new cultural expressions, and perhaps, making a new claim on British identity itself. Taken as a whole, the scene became known as the Asian Underground.
This duo of films offers a potted history of that time. We hear from the producers and progenitors of the culture and its spaces, as well as the everyday people who enjoyed these new dis-orienting rhythms and dance floor spatialities. In painting this picture—which is by no means complete—we can also start to understand the Asian Underground from below, reading these films as documentary evidence of a social history that is only beginning to be told.
• Brimful of Asia (1998) dir. Pratibha Parmar 24"
• Talvin Singh: Sounds of the Asian Underground dir. Tony Knox (1997) 25"
• Identical Beat dir. Smita Malde (1994) 25"
With an introduction by Pratibha Parmar, followed by a discussion with DJ Ritu & Tariq Jazeel, led by Kulraj Phullar.
Event curated by Julian Ehsan, an archivist and curator based in London. His work centres on platforming and celebrating family, community, and social histories of the South Asian diaspora.
This much we do know: during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, new sonic forms and club spaces emerged from, and for, South Asian people in Britain. From Club Kali—a queer club night founded by DJ Ritu that originated from the South Asian LGBTQIA+ organisation Shakti—to Talvin Singh’s Anokha—a crucible of ephemeral cool in late 1990s Hoxton where young British South Asians danced alongside a multicultural cohort of East Londoners, as well as the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Aphex Twin, and Björk—the second generation was appropriating and transforming dominant musical forms, formulating new cultural expressions, and perhaps, making a new claim on British identity itself. Taken as a whole, the scene became known as the Asian Underground.
This duo of films offers a potted history of that time. We hear from the producers and progenitors of the culture and its spaces, as well as the everyday people who enjoyed these new dis-orienting rhythms and dance floor spatialities. In painting this picture—which is by no means complete—we can also start to understand the Asian Underground from below, reading these films as documentary evidence of a social history that is only beginning to be told.
• Brimful of Asia (1998) dir. Pratibha Parmar 24"
• Talvin Singh: Sounds of the Asian Underground dir. Tony Knox (1997) 25"
• Identical Beat dir. Smita Malde (1994) 25"
With an introduction by Pratibha Parmar, followed by a discussion with DJ Ritu & Tariq Jazeel, led by Kulraj Phullar.
Event curated by Julian Ehsan, an archivist and curator based in London. His work centres on platforming and celebrating family, community, and social histories of the South Asian diaspora.