Sonik Omi

While on my way to Rome in 1990 I visited a musician friend in Zürich for a stop over. He is one of those guys you can completely trust with his musical taste and he enjoyed showing off his obscurest vinyl possessions.
After we had listened to some super rare northern soul sides he pulled out a thrift store find which jumped right in my face: It was a soundtrack to a 1978 Bollywood film called "Teen Eekay" by Sonik Omi! Has there ever been a better title and a greater name than Sonik Omi?! (consider that "Omi" means "granny" in German). Although I have later found out that Sonik Omi are actually two people, uncle Sonik and nephew Omi!



It was a few years before the Bollywood phenomenon was slowly discovered in Europe, so I had no idea what kind of music was hidden behind the incredibly tacky sleeve.

There is a great joke in "The Simpsons" in which Apu puts on an Indian record which plays a totally wild cacophony of tabla, sitar and flute. Apu then notices that the record plays at wrong speed, switches it to 33rpm and the music changes to a Sinatra-style crooning.

Even played at 33 "Teen Eekay" is a wild mix of Indian musical pop, disco and the wildest exotica. I loved every second of it and tried to find this record for ages. I even considered contacting EMI India, and thought about borrowing "Teen Eekay" as the name for a band or even this blog.


The internet isn´t of great help at least not in a language I can read and you can only find one still-shot clip on youtube. To get a rough idea of what to expect from the record I only heard once 19 years ago and which I have never forgotten, here is Ree Baba Ree Baba. Get ready for a blast of Teen Eekay-madness. Take it away, Sonik Omi!

So great, you have to listen to it twice: Ree Baba Ree Baba