WHO? WHAT? EH?

Just to help speed things up. Here’s factoids

  • What’s with the name Drongomala? It is a mixture of two words - the australian slang for idiot (drongo) and the Sanskrit word (mala) for an ‘evocation of’. So….evocation of an idiot.

  • Who’s in the band? These days it’s a locus of me so each set of musicians is assembled per album. For my most recent record ‘Mullenia’ the band were mostly sourced from Buenos Aires, Argentina where I lived and recorded a few years ago.

  • Are you gigging? No live band at present but if the world beckons then who knows!

  • How many songs do you have? You know when people say hundreds of songs but they mean maybe 50 - I actually mean hundreds, like maybe 3-400. I’m up to my 13th album/EP.

  • What is something weird about you? I’m a world expert on AI

POTTED REVISIONIST HISTORY

My first band that really toured was Baby Bartok and played hundreds of gigs all over the UK. We did Publishing deals with the famous CaVa studios in Glasgow... glorious but then blew up because of a difference of opinion on 'Public Enemy' and house music. During the 90's I was immersed in the Drum and bass scene in Edinburgh especially it’s intersection with turntablism. I started fusing some of my hard won DnB computer editing chops with Indian tabla beats. One of the songs I wrote back then ‘I’m a Moron UR an Idiot’ is only just now finished and being released!

Put out 3 tracks on a compilation called Radio Wonderlust. I was called simply Drongo then. After I formed my own label Flying Mountain and went further afield to South India.

In 2003/4 I recorded and composed with top classical South Indian musicians in Kerala, India living there for two years. Two records came out of this - Scale and 100 Fields along well as two books on Indian music. The record features some of the best up and coming talent in South Indian carnatic/classical scene.

In Oct 2005 I worked with some rappers on the Elemental album from Oakland, California just after New Orleans had flooded. Azeem shines through as an emerging auteur on this record.

Crash landing back in Manchester I got together an electro punk band The Good Hurt. Short, glorious, bloody and full of electrcity - you can't get this in a power gym. Of an afternoon and night in Manchester I also produced a number of exciting projects with artists such as Louis Oak Anderson who I produced and performed with on the record "Up North in the Coalshed". TheWhatSupreme,Sensei C and many others.

At the end of 2007 I recorded Lucky Man Alive in Cario. 1 day in Cairo - I meet a percussionsit and violin player on the hop and do 7 tracks.

May 2009 - finished a soundtrack record called '1200 Miles As The White Crane Flys'. It features Ian Dixon the auter jazz and primitive flute genius of Manchester. 4 years later and my online collaboration with a friend Boofa in NZ sees the light of day.

Drongomala, Sinik & Tree : Aug 2009. the second 'lost' EP from the The Good Hurt of Manchester originally recorded in 2007 but mothballed after the band imploded.'. Check it out. It's even better than the first one.

Release of preacherman house single (When You Go You Take The) Garden With You from forthcoming Drongomala album titled This is The Way.

Released Goodbye Anoop - South Indian Folk (folk and classical) album with Vamsi Das dedicated to a lost friend.

Spanish language Album with top tango/jazz artists called Almas Buenas - recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina - in Spanish.

 

I Am Drongomala

pronounced 

dron-go-maa-laa

more formally known as Dr. Ongo Mala and I sometimes check into hotel rooms under the names 

Mr A. Gondola | A Normal God | Random Goal | Mr Do Analog | A Normal Dog | A Room Gland | A Gold Manor | Modal Rag No.