About this Artist

• Biography

Editorial Reviews

Koushik's first album was a collection of EPs, and while it worked well as an introduction, it fell short as an album. Not so with the follow-up: 2008's Out My Window is an enveloping hug of blissed-out melodies, gentle beats, hushed vocals, and carefully constructed musical backdrops that casts a spell of peaceful harmony that is difficult to shake. Not that you'd want to. Koushik weaves together a wide range of influences (hip-hop, '60s psychedelia and sunshine pop, early-'70s singer/songwriters, the tripped-out jazz of the late '60s, shoegaze, and trip-hop, to name the main sources) over the course of the album, and often within individual songs, to come up with his sound. It never lapses into simple mimicry or pastiche, though; Koushik is a master at making something new out of all the parts he liberates from the past. He deftly chops, mixes, and blends great clouds of reverbed sound -- the chiming guitars, the lightly skittering drums, the warbling flutes and subtle horns -- but also doesn't forget to write songs with some hazy, lazy soul at their center. A song like "In a Green Space" is a fine achievement based on sound alone, coming off like a David Axelrod-produced session for the Millennium, but Koushik's quietly insistent vocals give it some emotional punch. There are more examples of well-crafted songs (the insanely joyful "Lying in the Sun" for one) that capture real feelings, but the most impressive aspect of Out My Window is the dreamy, sun-kissed mood the album conjures up from the first note to the final fade. Koushik has a few contemporaries doing something similar (Nobody, Four Tet, Caribou), but apart from Caribou's Andorra, none of them has come up with an album as good overall as Out My Window. Tim Sendra, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

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