Sharmin Sultana Sumi: Touching Lives

Podcast

In this episode of Long Take: Life as an Artist, we sit down with Sharmin Sultana Sumi, a Bangladeshi lyricist, composer, vocalist, and entrepreneur, best known for her work with the internationally acclaimed folk-rock band Chirkutt. Sumi shares her philosophy of music and life, rooted in resilience and fueled by personal hardships. Tune in now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other platforms!

Sumi opens up about her career path – from overcoming initial struggles as a female lead singer to performing on international stages alongside legendary bands like Scorpions, collaborating with the Norwegian band Casa Murilo, and performing at MTV India, South By Southwest, Jaffa Music Festival, Womex, and more.

She introduces us to her creative ventures, including Kokil Studios and Spring Off Music, her dynamic production hub. Sumi also discusses projects like Nodi Rocks (featuring one song for each river in Bangladesh), which reflects her passion for linking music and environmental advocacy. Additionally, she shares insights into her advertising company, Salt Creatives, which often focuses on climate change initiatives.

Tune in for an engaging conversation about making music larger than life, thriving in the face of adversity, and embracing creativity for a greater cause. Fun fact: Sumi has the unique ability to write a song during an interview. Let’s find out if she crafted one this time!

Credits

Host: Thomas Burkhalter
Sound: Daniel Jakob, Melodies In My Head
Mix and Mastering: Daniel Jakob
Graphic Design (Cover): Pamuditha Zen Anjana
Editorial support: The Norient team and Rebecca Favale
Support in Dhaka: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

Listen to the full episode on YouTube and find outtakes in this YouTube playlist.

The podcast «Long Take: Life as an Artist» dives into deep conversations with artists from across the globe, focusing on musicians and sound creators. Hosted by Norient founder, anthropologist, writer and audiovisual artist Thomas Burkhalter, it explores the personal journeys of these artists – their aspirations, successes, challenges, creative processes, and perspectives on the world. The podcast is minimally edited, offering authentic portrayals of each artist, revealing the person behind the art. It serves as a valuable, freely accessible resource for anyone researching music, sound, culture, and politics.

The podcast is funded by

Biography

Thomas Burkhalter, PhD, is an anthropologist, multidisciplinary artist, and writer from Bern, Switzerland. He is the founder and director of Norient and the Norient Festival. Burkhalter has co-directed documentary films, including Contradict (Berner Filmpreis 2020, Al-Jazeera Witness), and created AV/theatre performances. He is the author and co-editor of several books, such as Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut (Routledge) and The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East (Wesleyan University Press). His experimental radio feature, Gqom Edits – A Durban Visit, was nominated for the Prix Europa in 2017. Burkhalter teaches regularly at universities, leads workshops for arts institutions, and, since 2022, has produced the Norient Mixtape for Swiss National Radio SRF3. Currently, Burkhalter's focus lies on his new music/AV duo, Melodies In My Head, and the podcast Long Take: Life as an Artist. Burkhalter’s work combines personal and global perspectives, often in close collaboration with artists and thinkers from across the world. Follow him on Instagram, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Meta.

Published on January 23, 2025

Last updated on January 24, 2025

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Long Take: Life as an Artist

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Bogotá: A Promise Between Silence and Noise by Luisa Uribe

Bogotá: A Promise Between Silence and Noise

Podcast

by Luisa Fernanda Uribe

In Episode 20 of the TIMEZONES podcast series, four artists discuss the duality of Bogotá: a vibrant yet chaotic city full of contrasts – rich in culture but marked by violence, diverse but segregated. How can ambient music provide a way to pause and reflect amidst the noise of everyday life? Produced by Luisa Uribe.

Producers Mav Nuhels, Ezmeralda, dj +1 and composer, sound artist, and interdisciplinary creator Ana María Romano discuss the contrasts of Colombia’s capital city. They share how they use sound as a tool to navigate their personal histories and reflect on the cultural landscape of Bogotá. They explore the broader social and political realities of Colombia and reveal how ambient music not only creates a contemplative space and escape from the overwhelming daily life, but also becomes a subtle form of resistance and storytelling within a challenging urban environment.

Credits

A podcast by Luisa Uribe
in collaboration with Manuel Suárez Parias, Tembe Laboratorio Sonoro

Produced by Norient

Featuring: Mav Nuhels, Ezmeralda, dj +1, Ana María Romano

Artistic Editor: Abhishek Mathur
Project Management: Abhishek Mathur
Outreach/Press: Janina Neustupny
Selected photographic works: Gregorio Díaz
Video Trailer: Carroll Omuom
Additional music by: Iphi
Jingle Voiceover: Nana Akosua Hanson
Jingle Mix: Daniel Jakob
Mastering: Adi Flück, Centraldubs
Artwork: Šejma Fere

Listen on

→ Listen to further TIMEZONES episodes

Featured Artists

Manuel Suárez Parias is an anthropologist, sound engineer, and scholar in sound studies and sonic arts. He researches and works with sound on experimental non-fiction projects for multichannel installations, audio post-production for cinema, and expanded radio formats. Follow him on Instagram.

Tembe Laboratorio Sonoro is a company that navigates between social research and sound creation with the aim of developing cultural projects and new participatory methodologies focused on education with a territorial and environmental approach. This initiative is based on collaborative work with other artists, researchers, territories, and institutions that share the interests of our projects. It is also a space designed for experimentation and sound research in the fields of acoustic ecology, musicology, intersections between sound and activism, heritage issues, and urban studies. Follow them on Instagram.

Mav Nuhels has been a producer in Bogotá for seven years, exploring numerous sounds and styles. He is characterized by having a very particular visual and sonic identity within the Colombian electronic scene. His music is sincere and made to connect the soul with what we often flee from: sadness, melancholy, and mourning. As a DJ, his profile offers an amalgamation of references focused on ambient and vaporwave, along with distorted and time-manipulated Latin American percussions. Aiming to turn the dance floor into a space of contemplation and slow dance. Follow him on Instagram.

Ezmeralda is the present of Cedritos’ child, Bogotá’s own Nicolás Vallejo. His early work with La MiniTK Del Miedo and their unapologetic gótico tropical stance set the stage for his late excursions with synths, cumbia rebajada and effects, a journey that began with downpitching traditional Colombian ritmos and then watercoloring the hell of them. More recently, EZM has ditched his own playbook to take a deep dive into the bones of ambient, exhibiting a shivering love for life via a glimmering, droney, loopy, noisey, glowy post impressionistic sentiment. Follow him on Instagram.

Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and with residences in Quito, Brasilia and Mexico City, Gregorio Hernández de Alba tries to give life to everyday Latin American scenes, through sequences and synthesizers, with his electronic music project, dj +1. Follow him on Instagram.

Ana María Romano is a Colombian composer, sound artist, and interdisciplinary creator. Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender, sexuality, sound, and technology, shaped by themes of listening, soundscapes, space, the body, noise, experimentation, cyberspace, and the political dimensions of creation. In every sphere of her life, she prioritizes collective and collaborative work. Follow her on Instagram.

Trailer

by Karrl

Norient City Sounds: Bogotá

Dive deeper into the diversity of Bogotá, where multiple cities exist at once in this Norient Online Special, curated by Luisa Uribe. Norient City Sounds: Bogotá spotlights the city’s plurality, showing how its people reclaim public spaces and celebrate their defiant existences through vibrant nightlife and boundary-crossing music.

→ Explore the full special and read an introduction by NCS and TIMEZONES curator Luisa Uribe.

The TIMEZONES podcast series plunges into the world of artists and their practices, asking: what does living and working in culture and the arts involve in different countries, cities, and contexts today? The artists’ thoughts on their moods, their social, political, and intellectual realities and their philosophies (of life) have been worked up into experimental audio collages.

The podcasts run the gamut of formats and content, from straight journalism to experimental and documentary approaches, ethnography and fiction, sound art, and improvisation. The TIMEZONES series endeavours to create new artistic forms of storytelling, listening and exchange across the boundaries of geography, time zones, genres, and practices.