RENU’s record release concert in Berlin is still with me. Her solo show gifted us with the impeccable precision of her live drumming in conversation with electronic beats, tunes, soundscapes as well as songs and poems in the voices of collaborating artists.

All these elements have been produced and put together by RENU herself, which proves her also a skilful director and inspired curator deeply versed in translocal repertoires, transcending categories in ways that keep surprising me – her eclectic tradaptions dance on common grounds deep down under the surface. The immersive corresponding visuals added to creating a temporary contact zone beyond ordinary consciousness. I saw floral patterns, historical photography, translocal
ancestors and artistic companions calling in and emerging as co-presence from around India, Europe, the Middle East. Classical drumming, rapid finger movement, electronics, polyrythm and tunes well familiar to the Arabic ear interweave much wider, more subtle, multilayered, complex and entangled than European scales might make believe.

The emotional journey carried me to intense heights of release and moments of overwhelming fragility where my heart broke open. RENU’s music is balancing this thin line between intense joy and bittersweet longing. I was simultaneously wanting to let myself fall inside myself and be carried by the resonance, and get up to dance and let my whole body join the shake. So I started the concert sitting but when the lights turned on to frenetic applause of fans and friends, some time in between my body had got me
up and moving. This soulful and skilful performance is both timeless and absolute avant garde and promises to stay both for a very long future.