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Miti Adhikari: Kolkata boy who engineered the sound of rock gods
Adhikari –– who gained the moniker Silver Fox –– turned his attention to the Indian indie scene in the late 2000s
Mumbai : Miti Adhikari, a producer and sound engineer who worked with the British Broadcasting Corporation for over three decades, recording and mixing original tracks with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Beyonce that would then be broadcast on television and the radio, died on Sunday. He was 69.
Adhikari –– who gained the moniker Silver Fox –– turned his attention to the Indian indie scene in the late 2000s, when he worked on the songs of his cousin Neel Adhikari’s band, Class Apart. The duo even had an outfit called MANA (formed using their initials). Adhikari worked on albums for The Supersonics, Menwhopause, Cassini’s Division, Agnee and Bengali rock band, Jack Rabbit, shuttling between the UK and India.
“I don’t understand the Bollywood scene much, but I love the underground scene. I’ve brought a travelling studio down here and I want to work with the bands to help in the evolution of the scene. At some stage, I want these bands to match their international counterparts,” he told the Hindustan Times in 2010 interview.
Adhikari grew up in Kolkata, took his first guitar lessons with legendary blues artist Gussy Rikh, played the bass guitar and sang lead vocals in a rock band called Mahamaya. In 1977, at the age of 20, he went to London and after trying for months, was finally selected to join the BBC as a trainee sound engineer. The BBC would call bands to its famed Maida Vale studios for exclusive sessions, where they would record four songs in 12 hours. Adhikari’s job, as he told HT in 2010, was to be “a fresh pair of ears in the studio environment, who would give them a direction”. Adhikari recorded and mixed the song the same week after which it received extensive airtime. Bands often asked him to produce other songs for their albums. His repertoire included rock and indie legends including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire, and the Foo Fighters. He also lent his expertise at the Glastonbury, T in the Park, and Reading and Leeds music festivals.
“Miti was a teacher, an analyst and the kind of cool that we all wanted desperately to be like. I knew him through Neel, who was his cousin. Miti helped us for years, not just mixing our music for films like Gandu and Tasher Desh, but helping us technically achieve a global sound, with our limited resources. He was a hype man in spite of him being gently spoken. My partner in Death By Anjuna, Sandeep, also worked with Miti closely, on his album The Burning Deck. We will miss him terriby,” said filmmaker Quashik Mukherjee, aka Q.
Adhikari, who was based in Goa, is survived by his wife, Sam Adhikari, and his cousin Neel, among other family members.
