Live percussion in electronic music so often feels decorative; in the hands of Ravish Momin, however, the percussion is the whole point, the axis on which everything else turns. As a drummer and producer, Momin—the main brain behind Sunken Cages—has spent the past 20 years building a uniquely idiosyncratic soundworld that fuses traditional Indian percussion instruments with spangly, pristine electronic production. In “Drums and Flowers”, the latest single from his upcoming album, Nelam Pularumbol (As the Dawn Breaks), Ravish lays down a searing, raucous piece of ritualistic drum music that uses the idakka, a drum known in India as “God’s instrument” and connected with legends about Shiva’s cosmic dance.
The result is a cosmic dance writ small—a rickety, claustrophobic tightrope walk across four minutes of whiplash kick drums, whooshing synths, and steady, subatomic bass. The opening has an almost grime-like feel, with its stutter-stepping drum pattern and clickity hand percussion. And once the false ending comes in at the minute-and-30 mark, the whole thing takes a sinister nosedive, plunging into an underworld of hyena-like wails and clashing, meshing polyrhythms. It’s like listening to a slice of pre-industrial drum ‘n’ bass, if such a thing existed.
Sunken Cages‘ Nelam Pularumbol will arrive in full via Mahorka Records on 7th August 2026.
