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About Ami

Baltimore City

Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang is a South Asian-American vocalist, sitarist, composer and producer from Baltimore. Her sound ranges from North Indian classical fused with noise/ambient electronics to beat-driven psych and experimental dancepop. The work references her hybrid identity as a first-generation South Asian-American, Sikh upbringing, musical education, as well as the chaos and spirituality of the landscapes of both Baltimore and urban India.


Picking up her first sitar when she was twelve years old, Dang has studied North Indian classical music (voice and… more

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Hukam

This project features a selection of works from Hukam, a full-length album released in 2011. Ami Dang composed, produced and performed voice and sitar on all songs attached here.
  • Interlace
    “Interlace” is part 1 of 2 movements which flows into “Manali,” the second track on the record. This piece invites the listener to get acquainted with the sound palate of these works by drawing them into my soundscape. I used a distorted sitar riff recorded from this piece as the main driving theme in “Manali.”
  • Manali
    This song reflects on the contrasting experiences and intersection of a female foreign-born woman of South Asian descent (me) with a young girl growing up in the early 21st century in Manali, a Himalayan town that is a popular destination for tourists from around the world. In this song, I wonder what it would be like to be that young girl who is exposed to so much Western culture, behavior and practices through the tourists who are ever-present in the town yet living in a family and society that contains her within a tighter set of traditions and values.
  • Treasure
    I wrote the melody to “Treasure” but took the lyrics from a Sikh hymn from the Guru Granth Sahib that reminds us that “Ratan padhaarat maankaa, suinaa rupaa khaak,” that is, that all treasures, pearls, gold, and precious things ultimately turn to dust. The song is a meditation on consumerism and reminds me that I shouldn’t bother too much with material goods since they ultimately aren’t important. I also use a sample of a sarangi, an Indian violin.
  • Where Nothing Grows
    This ecstatic uptempo tune calls out the fact that we build simulacra (“a planetarium”) at the expense of actually seeing the stars. The song mocks those who “build us up and shut it out”—the “it” in this case being the stars and the sky. I ask, why is it that we prioritize industry and artifice over the natural world?
  • Amorphous Matter
    This piece uses recordings from a Hindustani vocal music class and uses these recordings to create a soundscape over which my voice sings the Hindustani classical music scale. It is part 1 of a 2-part piece that continues with “Amorphous Absolute."
  • Amorphous Absolute
    Both Amorphous Matter and Amorphous Absolute are a study in vocal form using sargam, Hindustani classical solfege, as the lyrical content. The lyrics don’t have any meaning, but instead, the voice explores Raag Maulkauns, a pentatonic scale intended to be performed at night.
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