Photos
Video (unpublished)
Bio (Sunken Cages)
Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin (also known as Sunken Cages), studied with US Jazz master-drummer Andrew Cyrille. He has worked as a sideman with a wide array of musicians including US Jazz legend Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre (AACM/Chicago) and pop-star Shakira. In the past, he led Tarana, a shapeshifting global-Jazz trio, on international and domestic stages for the past 14 years
His current projects include ‘Turning Jewels Into Water’ (with Haitian electronic music pioneer Val Jeanty), a duo with dragonchild (Ethio-American saxophonist DA Mekonnen of Debo Band) and Zelzeleh (a Digital Sufi Ensemble)
He has recently produced tracks with South African Gqom group Phelimuncasi (Nyege Nyege Records), Saxophonist Maria Valencia (Meridian Brothers), along with producers Makossiri (Hakuna Kulala, Kenya), Saskia (QTV, Brazil), Kush Arora (Discrepant, US), Baba Sy (Jokkoo Collective, Spain/Senegal) and Rani Jambak (Indonesia, Yes No Wave)
He has done remixes for Depeche Mode, global electronic music producers Batida (Portugal), Babani Sound System (Mauritius), and Guedra Guedra (Morocco).
His recent performance highlights include the Free Forma Impulse Festival (Italy), AfroBanana Festival (Cyprus), Words/Beat/ Life Festival (Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage (US)), Big Ears Festival (US), LeGuessWho? Festival (NL), Positive Futures Festival (AT), Lincoln Center Outdoors Festival (NYC, US), Slingshot Festival (US) and Festival Congedi (IT).
He is also the recipient of grants from New Music USA, The Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, NYC Arts In Education Roundtable, Arts International, Meet The Composer and NYSCA (New York State Council of the Arts)
Bio (Ishtar Sr)
Ishtar Sr. is the Afrofuturistic art pop project of Philadelphia vocalist-producer Savan DePaul. She conjures in her music a “Neo-Sumer”: a glitchaholic amalgam of DePaul’s personal musings on life and ongoing re-imaginings of Sumerian myth to paint a portrait of queer womanhood under modern authoritarian dystopia.
DePaul also makes hip hop music under her given name as well as her noise/free improv persona
Asphalt Savannahs; in addition she participates in numerous collaborative acts: psychedelic art folk jam band The Lanternflies, Free Spirits (with fellow Philly rapper D’NAE), space rap operatic duo Sagan Theory (with New York beatmaker Mimar Sinan), lo-fi afropunk collaboration Party In The Crossfire (with Massachusetts bedroom pop artist Mynameisblueskye), and Dolphin Point Skydivers (with Australian electronic producer Myst Mach) as well as being a member of the Beartooth Collective. She has released music independently as well as through Tiergarten Records, Astro Nautico, and Grimalkin Records (the latter of which she is a former vice chairwoman of).
Press (for Sunken Cages)
‡Featured in WIRE Magazine’s Wire Tapper (March 2025)
‡Featured in Bandcamp’s November Ley Lines Roundup (Nov 25, 2024)
‡Sponsored by Ableton for 1st ever e-drum lab @ The UK Drum Show (Liverpool,UK) (Sept 29, 2024)
‡Commissioned for a Remix by Depeche Mode (Oct 16, 2023)
‡Featured in The Fader (Feb 16, 2023)
‡Featured in The Quietus (April 26, 2023)
“Meanwhile, lead single ‘The Source’ [ produced by Sunken Cages] is funk-infused from the get-go, electronic sounds saturating the empty space,
followed by a wailing sax, echoing dizzyingly around the beat.”
Memphis Magazine (Weekend Pick) (May 19, 2022)
“This show is a unique hybrid between live performance and production. You’ll also hear the influence of street sounds from underground dance music from Sao Paolo to Durban to Mumbai and beyond.
The masterful mix of acoustic and electronic drums and cultures makes for a musical experience not to miss.”
‡Featured in Resident Advisor (Mar 8, 2021)
“In recent years, drummer and producer Ravish Momin, AKA Sunken Cages, has chalked up a solid track record of cross-breeding production techniques,
with an impressive level of innovation.”
Press (for Ishtar Sr)
featured in Wire Magazine as a part of Grimalkin Fest (November 2022)
Audrey Lockie’s review of debut “Divine Ecdysis” in SLUG MAG
featured several times in XPN’s The Key (2018-2022)
featured on Bandcamp (with project collaborator Madam Data):
“With their new collaborative album Slug/Savior, DePaul and Madam Data have combined their cosmic forces to create a record worthy of Braxton’s minimalist, algebraic compositions, while remaining rooted in dark, Antipop Consortium-styled, Def Jux-ian poeticisms.”
press quote by Alex Smith for The Rotunda (December 4, 2022)
“Philadelphia is a mass of hardened coals, smashed by systemic chaos and a sometimes overwhelming brokeness, but every once in a while, this music community will produce a gem, a diamond from all that pressure. Ishtar Sr.’s music wavers from hard, pulsating experimental East Coast hip hop to dreamlike, cinematic cyberpunk soundscapes– she is both the diamond and the coal existing simultaneously, creating a kind of hip hop that’s at once jagged and ethereal.”