Bishi carves her own universe with a rock-sitar and tireless dedication

Photo credit: Frederic Aranda

In the mid 2000s, London's queer nightlife scene was a thriving circus of delights that saw shabby Dalston basements and glitzy Soho bars turned inside out for eccentric fashion shows, daring drag performances and hedonistic raves — often all under the same roof (see: Kashpoint, Anti-Social, Trannyshack, Boombox, Moonlighting, Trailer Trash, NagNagNag to name but a few).

It's no surprise that this melting pot of creativity was a defining moment for a teenage Bishi. "What I'd do was lie to my mum and dad, say I was staying at someone's house, stay up all night and go to school the next day" she laughs. The loud and provocative artistic statements of the time owed a gratitude to DIY culture which was infectious; art schools across the capital laid the foundations which saw charity shop finds transform into haute couture and genre-defining albums recorded on half working laptops.

"I feel like there was this liminal period three or four years just before smartphone technology blew up, and it was really happening with music and bands and fashion. That sweet spot of free WiFi and cheap rent" Bishi remembers fondly. "You'd get a shit job in a shitty little vintage shop... three days a week, get some tax credits and the rest of the time be in your little crew!"

This DIY sentiment fostered Bishi's early musical experiments like her sting with radical art collective Minty, who helped record her first single at the tender age of fifteen. This experience led to swapping out Indian Classical for a new hybrid sound made up of MIDI controllers, loop pedals and her trademark 'rock sitar', an unusual combo that has since propelled her to great new heights. Outside touring with Anoushka Shankar in Europe, recording at Real World Studios and giving virtual-reality presentations for Amazon/Twitch, Bishi runs her own record label and WITCiH - a creative network that celebrates women in tech. Despite being bluntly dismissed early in her career for not being "marketable to a white audience", Bishi now boasts a resume that reads like a who's who of music royalty; Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, Tony Visconti, Sean Ono Lennon, Portishead, Jarvis Cocker, Johnny Greenwood and Kronos Quartet - the list goes on.

It's Bishi's independent status as an artist that's enabled her to carve out her own universe, on her own terms, in her own time and been rewarded all the more for it.

Photo credit: Frederic Aranda

Music has always been central to her household. Her mother Susmita Bhattacharya is a widely recognised classical singer of the Tagore tradition, performing and recording extensively for decades. While Bishi similarly trained in the sitar clocking in hundreds of hours with the Indian teacher Gaurav Mazumdar, she became far more interested in exploring a hybridised sound, much to her community’s initial dismay. There was an unspoken passivity that fell upon immigrant communities in post-colonial Britain. At a time when job prospects were scarce and housing was seldom offered, each day was a small victory and for the most part, it was easier and safer to accept things for what they were without fuss. 

Bishi's parents were part of that first wave of Bengali settlers to England in the 1970s and their experience was no different. “I think because my mum is a musician, it's just assumed they were really bohemian. But they were definitely a lot more liberal. They were extremely strict... when I think about it in context, they were raising two daughters during the 'paki bashing 80s'. I hate to use the P word, but it was in its height then” Bishi recalls. “It must have played into how we were all raised.”

Though this shared, hereditary hyper-awareness trickled down into the consciousness of the second-generation, they challenged racism head on and were defensive of their dual identity in ways their parents couldn't quite imagine, far less accept. The widespread reach of the Asian Underground movement during the turn of the millennium — with Talvin Singh's Mercury Music Prize win and Nitin Sawhney's sell out Royal Albert Hall concerts — encapsulated a new immigrant state of mind that was here to stay. “Times have changed, people are cross-pollinating all over the place” Bishi smiles.

Photo credit: Frederic Aranda

The delicate issues surrounding race, class and heritage that marinated over the following years became central to her expression and is the subject of the long-anticipated third album 'Let My Country Awake', a six-track love letter serenading Britain's immigrant identity. In addition to her electronic classical production style and multi-octave operatic singing prowess, she features the additional voices of Nikesh Shukla, Salena Godden and Darren Chetley (writers who penned profoundly personal essays to Shukla's best-selling 2016 book 'The Good Immigrant') to help vocalise their story in unison. It's both a passionate and tongue-in-cheek jab that provokes important questions confronting millions of Britons day to day and adds to the rich pantheon of trailblazing South Asian iconography that exists alongside other important offshoots gaining momentum such as the work of Hungama, Daytimers, Baesianz and Azeema Magazine.

It's a crying shame that Bishi isn't more of a household name given her prolific output over the last decade. For an artist who was once dubbed 'the next big thing' following an appearance on Live on Jonathan Ross in her teens, Bishi has fought tirelessly against the music industry's sexist and racist hurdles, blossoming gracefully into the avant-garde artist she is today.

"It's been really really fucking hard. But your creativity and your craft ultimately sets you free... it's been really hard but I can feel something turn, and I've done it on my own".

In an industry where South Asian female musicians are significantly under-represented, Bishi is an inimitable powerhouse whose accomplishments stand to inspire artists of today and for generations to come.