Sometimes offering mellow and poignant journeys to lead reflections into the deepest crevices of the mind and the universe, and other times providing escape and upliftment through the elixir of raw and visceral dance-floor experiences, Kiss Nuka is the genre-bending uncensored outlet of Anushka Manchanda. It is where she distils the world around her – with all its injustices and capacity for compassion, its chaos and natural tranquillity, and its eternal undercurrents and immediate concerns – into stylistically boundless and immersive musical experiences. A well-established creative polymath based between Mumbai and Spain, Anushka Manchanda has an artistic legacy that spans from editing and directing to Bollywood playback singing and screen performances. With Kiss Nuka, she asserts total control of her artistic voice and presents it at its most unabashed and all-encompassing. Blends of ambient soundscapes, four-on-the-floor rhythms, electro-pop vocal lines, drum and bass frenzy, groovy bass thumping and poetic lyricism co-exist on works like the cinematic and haunting ‘Don’t Be Afraid’, the subtle and sombre ‘Kashmir’, the socio-politically bold and blazing hip-hop number ‘Ayo Burn’, and her latest EP ‘Serpentine’, which fluidly traverses across the spectrum of dance music with a gritty energy. Her recent releases also include the single ‘I Love The Drive’, which dropped on the seminal UK label Ninja Tune imprint Ahead Of Time and was accompanied by a remix from co-founder and one-half of Coldcut, Matt Black. Bringing together all her creative roles, Kiss Nuka elevates her musical offerings with audio-visual pieces dealing with themes like the rise of the feminine, animal rights, and environmentalism to create cinematic storytelling for both the screen and the live setting. Her thought-provoking audio-visual work has won recognition at the Indian Independent Music Awards, Berlin Music Video Awards, and London Music Video Awards, and is currently on display at The World of Music Video exhibition at Völkinger Hütte UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside work from iconic artists like Björk, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack and Lil Nas X. Kiss Nuka’s latest activism driven release FIGHT, is in collaboration with Beirutbased NGO The Great Oven, offering listeners the opportunity to purchase and own bits of the song via UK based music tech platform SongBits, with part proceeds going back to The Great Oven for their on ground work with refugee camps, war-torn communities, and countries in crisis. Kiss Nuka also was part of the SongBits delegation at SXSW in Austin, Texas earlier this month for the promotions of Fight. As a live performer, Kiss Nuka has brought her hypnotic, seamless and dynamically-rich live set to stages such as Mixmag LAB, Magnetic Fields Festival and Basscamp Festival. She wrapped up her first year soundtracking the dancefloor by getting featured among Mixmag’s Top 15 Live Acts of 2022. In 2023, the artist-producer and activist has wrapped her Serpentine Live tour across India, and will be supplementing it with a remix EP from prolific peers in the coming months, a UK-Europe tour over the summer, and her next EP
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