voscillation is the artist pseudonym for the electronic-folk music I write, record and produce.  Currently I live in Manhattan Beach, CA, but honestly, I've always associated Hermosa Beach as my hometown, because I moved there right out of grad-school from Philadelphia.  I decided on LA after picking 5 cities for my first job applications: those were New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.  You can imagine this Minnesota born and bred boy landing in Hermosa Beach as his new home.  My apartment was at 16th and Bonnie Brae, in a stacked duplex, owned by a younger bartender Brian and his beautiful Ukrainian wife.  I used to love running into Brian down at the bars on the pier.  Weekends of mine were at the beach playing volleyball and cornhole, exploring every street in the Thomas Guide, and chasing the amazing girls of southern California.  

Songwriting for me started quite a while after I first picked up the guitar in college at the University of Iowa.  My Quad Cities native-born friend, Bentley Hodges, went with me to buy my first guitar at the pawn shop on S Clinton Ave., I could not stop dialing-up to download chord-charts every…single…day and stretching each finger to move from chord-shape to chord-shape, while mumbling lyrics because I had no idea how to sing.  The artists who inspired me to make my fingers bleed, were Patty Griffin, Martin Sexton, Adam Duritz (well, he did), Indigo Girls, Ben Harper, James Taylor and Paul Simon.  Sprinkle in Weezer, Oasis, and Third Eye Blind, and I was up all night, not studying the biomedical engineering material my parents had sent me to Iowa to learn, but understanding the minor versus the minor seven.  Songwriting, the real craft of it, started when I met Monica in LA.  She moved me to put my love for the turn of a phrase, to music.  My first song was about her, and in a way really, every song includes an aspect of how I perceive love in her context.

The electronic component of the recorded music I write comes from my love of minimal techno.  Monica and I moved to Manhattan and lived on Mulberry between Prince and Spring for 3 years.  I sought out the cutting edge Indian classical players in the city, working at United for Opportunity record label and doing live performance production management under the Invasion Group.  Ironically, I can feel the drive through India listening to embryonic hits like Better Off Alone, and Venga Bus and other stuff straight out of Daddy-O in Cancun.  

Even though my studio records include electronic instrumentation, my live show is really just me and my acoustic guitar.  I've performed all over LA, and can't wait to share my music with you.

Please leave a note for me in the guest book below.  Know you were here and acknowledged my art is the only metric that matters to me.  For real.

-Vivek Khurana