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East infection >> Making the connection with DJ Ram by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
"In the span of 20 minutes," boasts Borcar, "I could mix this breakbeat stuff, drum & bass, Jimi Hendrix and Hindi film music. That's sort of the way my mind has always worked. For me, all this stuff goes together. A lot of people don't see any connection, but I do." A peek into Borcar's background provides some insight into his taste for the unusual. "From playing drums in (wacky psychedelic metal unit) Hazy Azure, to playing jazz vibraphone in Cegep, studying classical composition in university and DJing, it's only normal that I'm going to have a bit of everything mixed up in there." While he's best known around town for his skills behind the turntables, Ram considers DJing to be a secondary aspect of his musical career. The real push, right now, is behind the Ramasutra project that Borcar has been slowly tinkering together for the last few years. Now that Tox Records, home of Dubmatique, has taken Borcar on board, Ramasutra has kicked into high gear. The debut album, tastefully titled The East Infection, should hit racks around the spring. Ramasutra is not a studio chimp's solo outing, though; local poet Mitsiko Miller provides the sultry vocal stylings and there will be live instrumentation from people like Jazz Pharmacy and Skyjuice. "And there are a lot of ethnic instruments on it as well--Arabic and Indian percussion, Japanese and Oriental stuff." Now, if Borcar can just get his paws on that kitchen sink, Ramasutra should be ready to go.
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If you caught Ram Borcar's DJ set when he opened for Asian Dub Foundation last November, you'll recall how he blew the headliners off the stage. Nonchalantly chugging beers in front of a slapdash video collage of blaxploitation, B-movie and Bollywood clips, Ram kicked over a can of dancefloor wax with the finesse of a man who knows what he's doing.