Squirrel Mail #4

Thanks for all the love & support for Human! I’m really excited to share a trailer Ingmar made for Living – the second and final part of Hiraeth an animated film by Casual Psychotic. 

The single will be out on 5th August! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zt1dqAR35M

The single will be out on 5th August! 

I will share more of my own thoughts next time. In the meantime, here are a few words from the director, Casual Psychotic:

“me and Anil thought it would be a cool idea to build a world around the two tracks. I guess in a way the man on the moon (in the videos) is a bit like any artist, you build a strange inner universe, it gets out of your control and by its very projection it pushes you out in to a vacuum in which you just float for a bit before finding another planet or in most non astral travelling circumstances another idea, song, image or whatever it is you do.” 

Human is also now on Spotify as well as itunes and Apple Music.

Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/1Df46IGNiY1G00P6d3fD2N?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/human-single/id1119541068?ls=1&app=itunes

Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/human-single/id1119541068?ls=1

OTHER NEWS

I’m just back from Secret Garden Party with London Contemporary Voices choir! Best moment was our space-inspired main stage performance with Basement Orchestra. This weekend, I’m off to Camp Bestival with the choir to perform our Spacejunk show in the Big Top!

It’s all about space it seems…

Squirrel Mail #3

Hi Squirrels

‘Human’ my debut single is out today! The Human video, which premiered on Line of Best Fit earlier this week, is the first part of Hiraeth, a two part animated film byCasual Psychotic. Here it is… 

You can buy/listen here:

Premiere on The Line Of Best Fit – “it’s a sparkling, sweeping, epic taste of his upcoming debut album – Mesonoxian.”: http://bit.ly/HumanBestFit

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/human-single/id1119541068?ls=1&app=itunes

Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/human-single/id1119541068?ls=1
HIRAETH

I explained a bit about what Hiraeth was all about in the last Squirrel mail, but here’s a bit more.

I wrote ‘Human’ with my friend Andrew R Bird in his flat. It started with some beautiful glockenspiel loops Andy played (he’s an amazing percussionist). There was no blue in the sky, just impenetrable grey – the kind that makes your eyes go funny. When London’s like that, it’s easy to forget that the huge black void of space and all its stars is still there just beyond it. Humanstarts in that dark, claustrophobic place but by the end there’s a playful acceptance – we’re in a massive unknowable void and so we may as well dance. After all, we’re only human. Can we be any more?

As well as a sneak of Part II Living, I’ll be sharing more thoughts from the director Casual Psychotic next time. It would also be cool to hear your thoughts, so feel free to hit reply- It’s actually been really nice getting email 

repliesfrom real people :D.

Love

Anil x

Squirrel Mail #2

Hi!

Thanks for all the love this month! Politically, musically, the last few weeks has fired up my squirrel neurons into all sorts of colours. Human life is a perplexing clusterfuck, so … we’ve made an animated world to escape to….

Hiraeth a two part animated film by Casual Psychotic. Part 1 is called ‘Human’. It will be first single from my album Mesonoxian – it’s coming out on 15th July! Here’s a sneak preview!

I wrote ‘Human’ with my friend Andrew R Bird. I was remembering watching the stars from my window when I was 8 wanting to Jack-and-the-beanstalk myself off the planet, to begin again. If we could leave and start again, would we fail in the same ways again? Could we fail better than we have? Hiraeth is a welsh word that describes the feeling I had – a homesick grief for something that no longer exists (or perhaps never did). With everything going on in the UK, it seems strangely relevant at the moment. Whichever camp you’re in, big love to all of you who’ve been stressed out by it all.

Squirrel XX

Squirrel Mail 1!

Welcome to squirrel mail – Anil Sebastian’s mailing list!

For those who are new to me… My name is Anil Kamalagharan. Sebastian is my middle name. I thought I’d make use of it ;). I’m a part German, part Sri Lankan/Malaysian Londoner. ’Anil’ means squirrel in Tamil (அணில்). This mailing list is about my work as a solo artist.

I mostly herd a marauding love army called London Contemporary Voices which I co-founded 5 years ago. We’ve had beautiful times with people like Imogen Heap, Guy Sigsworth, Manu Delago, Alt-J, Phoria, Sam Smith, Gwilym Gold, Basement Jaxx, Laura Mvula and at stuff like Burberry fashion shows. Here’s a song I arranged for Mahogany…

Amber Run ft London Contemporary Voices arr. Anil Sebastian

Mesonoxian – Casual Psychotic – Human

My first solo album Mesonoxian is actually finished! It will be out in September… before that happens….

Casual Psychotic has made an incredible two-part animated film we called Hiraeth which will accompany my first two singles Human & Living (July!).

Relative State

To do all this… Ings and I set up Relative State Records – our home – … we named it after Hugh Everett III’s Relative State interpretation of Quantum Mechanics – because we’re massive geeks with physics degrees.

Me and Ings – fishing pixies

Drumheart (Draw a Line) – Manu Delago

If you’re new to me and are wondering what I sound like, I wrote a little part of Manu Delago’s last album ‘Silver Kobalt’ – somewhere in the tiny gaps between him touring with Bjork and Anoushka Shankar. We shot this together in Austria last year.

Manu Delago ft Anil Sebastian – Drumheart

Hypertime

As well as Mesonoxian, I’ve been making songs with Guy Sigsworth. He’s done amazing things with Bjork, Frou Frou, Goldie, Britney & Madonna – and for everyone one of those songs there are a dozen incredible piano pieces. It’s a total dream come true. We mostly write songs about physics – – hyper time – love – stuff like that. More on that and everything else soon…

Love

Squirrel X