Surrey based producer Groove Guru, aka Trevor Pinto, is one among other acclaimed musicians to feature on the chillout series New Sound Theory, Vol. 4 – Tiger Lounge. Published by BasicLux Records USA, the album contains a blend of smooth house, bossa nova, downtempo, lush electronica and chillout music.

As a DJ Groove Guru has performed in famous nightspots all over the world. As an A & R manager he has worked with Stereo Nation, Pentagram, Raju Singh, Hema Sardesai, Sonu Nigam, Shankar Mahadevan and among others. He released his first single, Palolem Karma, in February ’06 followed by his 2nd single, Travel Shanti, in March 06 through Spice Global Records.
www.grooveguru.co.uk

Mrs Lopa Patel, founder of the Asian lifestyle portal Redhotcurry.com, has become the first Indian woman to be elected as a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) – the world’s largest professional body of marketing, with 50,000 members worldwide.

CIM has 1905 fellows with women making up about 10% of this group. Fellowship of the Institute is conferred upon members with a proven track record of expertise in marketing at the most senior level. Lopa, who has been a CIM member since 1990, attained the Institute’s Diploma in Marketing in 1991, became a Chartered Member in 1998 and has worked in marketing throughout her career.

Ms Patel, who is of Gujarati descent, said: “Like most young Asians at the time, I chose to study a science degree to please my parents. Although my first job was with ICI, a company that manufactured chemicals, I sought a role in marketing from the outset.” She then left ICI to start her own venture, a business-to-business direct marketing services company.

The acclaimed group State of Bengal have released their fourth album, Skip-iJ, through Betelnut Records. It is the creation of Sam Zaman, the man behind State of Bengal, who produced and recorded the album over a period of 3 years in his living room in East London.

The album contains collaborations and contributions from traditional and contemporary musicians and singers from across the globe. The band say the unusual title “refers to music that is not defined by a particular period and has the ability to skip through the ages”.

Since forming in 1987, State of Bengal have regularly toured internationally. Sam Zaman has worked with Bjork, Massive Attack, Ananda Shankar, Jolly Mukherjee and Paban Das Baul among others. Their track Flight IC408 was recently featured on the new Mira Nair film Namesake.
The album is available through stateofbengal.com and betelnut-records.com and myspace.com/stateofbengal. The band plan to tour the USA and Turkey this year to promote the album.

Media contact Nina Naran on nina@mediabitch.com.