Ami Dang and Kate Levitt

Ami Dang (pronounced “uh-mee”) has been mixing music since she was little. The American-born daughter of East-Indian parents, Dang grew up listening to classical Indian and Sikh religious music. She went on to study electronic music at Oberlin College, experimenting with noise and ambient sounds, all the while improving on the sitar. Dang‘s songs are not necessarily a mixture of Eastern and Western influences; rather, she places vocals inspired by traditional Indian melodies next to soft drones, tribal drumming and the sitar, diluting no distinct part of the composition.

"It's something I'm really grappling with, blending the sitar with things that I write,” says Dang. “When I study with my sitar guru, I don't bring anything electronic or anything having to do with my own composition to the lesson. When studying with her, it's just about classical music." 

Everyone, especially artists, struggles to reconcile background and influences with what's appealing and contemporary. 

“I think something that’s inspired my music is that I’m always present, whether or not I’m actively trying to draw inspiration from something.”

Dang recently began collaborating with two Baltimore musicians (producer/drummer Kate Levitt and producer/DJ Schwarz) to “juice everything up a little bit.”

“I’m kind of all melody and treble, and with both of them, their focus is on the beat. When they came in it just made a lot more sense to add a variety of beats and use polyrhythms and interesting drum sounds.”

Sitar is not a sound often heard on the deck of Farm 255, but Dang’s awareness of modern music and her beat-conscious collaborators make the ancient twang as experimental as anything to come out of that alley.