SHREYA BOSE
NISHANT MITTAL
MUSIC ARCHIVIST , CRATE DIGGER , MAN WHO KNOWS MUSIC
Do you ever stop to think about all the music that we can ’ t listen to simply because it doesn ’ t exist in circulation ? The thousands of acid rock , jazz , folk rock , classical raga records that didn ’ t get big enough to be widely sold , remembered or preserved ? No CDs , no Youtube uploads , no cassettes lying around . Just a few copies of their vinyl pressings strewn away in old stores , basements , private collections and even at the occasional chai ka dukan ( true story ).
Nishant Mittal thinks about them . Known largely by his Insta handle @ digginginindia , he has been collecting obscure records from around 7 years old . He travels the country looking for music lost to time , and resurrects them for public listening on his YouTube
channel . You can hear lost ( but not any more ) gems like Arun Amin ’ s Offerrings ( 1976 ), Susmit Bose ’ s Train to Calcutta , Yogi Please Help Me ” by Mahendra Kapoor , and Disco Jazz by Rupa Sen – and that ’ s just skimming off the top . You could dive into his channel Digging In India Archives for days .
Given his relentless effort to bring forgotten music , we at The Score Magazine had to catch up with this music archivist , DJ & music selector who has made it his life ’ s mission to keep our most-obscure-but-mostriveting sounds from dying an unknown death . Mittal talks about how he got started with collecting vinyl , digitizing music and the responsibility he feels when doing his work these days .
1 . Could you define “ music archiving ” for our readers ?
Music archiving can refer to the act of preserving and cataloging physical music archives . It can also be used to define the act of preserving digital archives . It can refer to someone building a personal collection , a collection for display like a museum or exhibition .
2 . How did you begin to archive music ?
I was always fascinated by the functioning of a vinyl record and started collecting records around 7 years ago . Since then I have been actively finding and collecting physical music formats . My blog on Instagram and YouTube account have become a platform for me to share obscure pieces of music that people don ’ t know about , like rock n roll , disco , jazz , and funk music from India in the 1960-1990 ’ s .
The Score Magazine
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