No Monkey Business

Mumbai producer-composers Nirmit Shah and Sid Shirodkar’s new band Ape Machines proffers fizzling synths and masterful musicianship

- Urvija Banerji

NIRMIT SHAH AND SID Shirodkar, of the freshly debuted Ape Machines, are grinning across the table from me. I’ve just asked them what their band name means. “We’re really terrible at coming up with names for anything,” says Shirodkar. “What do you think it means?”

I get the same feeling you get when a teacher asks you what you know is a trick question, or when the government agent taking your photo tells you that you have to show your ears and stop smiling– that is, the same feeling you get when you’ve just been set up to fail. I venture a half-hearted, “You guys are apes and your synths are your machines?”

It ’s not a terrible guess , admittedly: Shirodkar and Shah’s latest project, their debut as a duo, is synth-heavy and does indeed feature the two producer-composers going positively wild with blink-or-you’ll-miss it transitions and time-signature trickery. The pair are heavily inf luenced by the artists of the new jazz, neo-soul elite who propagate such masterful musicianship: Snarky Puppy, Hiatus Kaiyote, Robert Glasper, Thundercat.