Sky Rabbit: “Anti-Coke Ganpati”

11 Jul

‘The name of the song is ‘Anti-Coke Ganpati’? Are they a rare species of anti-drug musicians? Or are they just being ironic?’  

Searching for good Indian rock music usually involves sifting through piles of amateurish metal drivel and wannabe alternative/indie bands still searching for their own sound to reach those isolated pockets of unique, memorable music.  However, when one comes across a band like Sky Rabbit, the tiresome search sometimes seems worth it.

Formerly known as Medusa, this electronic post-punk band from Mumbai consists of Raxit (Vocals/Samples), Rahul (Guitar/Samples), Siddharth (Bass) and Harsh (Drums). Fusing electronica with conventional instruments, the band claims to have stumbled upon a unique style and sound. What is remarkable, however, is the way they have perfected this style in their very first album (Sky Rabbit, January 2012). We feel that there are only a few bands in India that manage to sound as spontaneous and self-assured right from their debut.

One thing we quite liked about this song was the intriguing title: most ‘rockers’ would never use the word ‘anti’ in the same sentence as a drug name (much less utter it in the same breath). We’ve determined that the title is either pedantic or, of course, ironic.

So we like the song. Should you listen to it? Let’s break it down.

Pros:

The ambience. The song kicks off with a sampled loop of pleasant, airy electronic, but by the time the drums and vocals kick in a couple of bars later, the song has settled into a soothing, rather lazy groove. Raxit’s deadpan baritone perfectly complements the sampled music and the steady rhythm guitar to set a drowsy, rather heady tone. The bass playing is minimalistic yet tasteful, and the drumming is tight. It is perhaps slightly ironic that a song with an anti-drug stance in its title creates a mood akin to what a stoner would feel after a particularly long session.

The loops. The song follows a slightly unusual chorus-verse-chorus pattern, with an interesting interlude. A few other sequenced samples are layered on top from time to time. My personal favourite is the last sampled loop in the song. As the instruments fade out, sequenced sounds which conjure up images of a Nintendo 8-bit game involving spaceships, play out till the end.

Cons:

Words. The lyrics are slightly puzzling, though. Riddance of blasphemy, idealistic presidential candidates, and the power-hunger of the same idealistic candidates all make an appearance. At one point, the band seems to be taking a dig at our current President (maybe). For a lot of the song, it’s unclear whether the band is going for something lyrically profound, or nonsensical filler words. The title, albeit intriguing, is gibberish as well: does it represent a demi-god figure with an anti-drug stance, or is it, along with a few other words in the interlude, a part of the musings of a stoned rambler? We’ll never know.

The musicianship. In that, no outstanding example of it is displayed in this song, and for that matter, on this album. There are no remarkable instrumental solos or mind-blowing vocals, and it will be interesting to see how the band fares when the novelty of their music fades.

Verdict:

For the moment, Sky Rabbit seems to have hit a purple patch with a unique and refreshingly original style and sound. The trippy ‘March’ and the brilliant ‘I Become I’ are other tracks worth checking out on the album. Even though there is no amazing technical ability on display, the band has a distinctive and impressive style and sound, which they’ll hopefully hold on to in the coming years, while continuing to grow and evolve.

Sky Rabbit plays TOMORROW at Delhi’s Hard Rock Cafe. You should check them out if you’re in the vicinity.

– Soumyadipto

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Live, from the Fillmore Jazz Festival 2012

10 Jul

Sunday was the first day of the Fillmore Jazz Festival 2012, the largest free jazz festival on the West Coast. Your intrepid reporter made the scene along with his trusty, if slightly vertically challenged, photographer and here are the impressions.

First Impressions

Coming into the festival, what strikes you is the number of commercial and rather incongruous stalls. Do people normally come to jazz festivals to pick up Moroccan oils? I do not know. I was here for the jazz and hopefully lunch of some sort. A long hike and a tuna fish sandwich later, I found my first performance.

Wayne De La Cruz B-3 Organ band with Pamela Rose

The woman singing, Pamela Rose, was highly enthusiastic, I will give her that. The music however was that sort of ‘almost there, but not quite good enough’ level of mediocrity. With music like that, there is not much you can do but walk away. Both the vocals and the band itself were nothing really special, although of the two the band was clearly the better one. They were all enjoying themselves though, and the audience sitting there seemed to like them. As long as everyone is having fun, there is really no need to quibble. I decided to see if I could find something better for myself though.

Verdict: Neither Pamela Rose nor the Wayne De La Cruz B-3 Organ Band seem worth the effort to follow them, but if they were on the radio when every other station is playing music for teenagers who watch Miley Cyrus, then I probably wouldn’t turn them off.

Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

The Contemporary Jazz Orchestra was not just good, they were excellent. These guys had everything that you could want from a jazz band. They had a good spread of songs; some classics, including a Bird composition, and some of their own as well. They tended to focus on their solos, which were uniformly excellent. The group as a whole provided a wonderful framework in which every member had a chance to shine. For a couple of numbers, they were joined by singer Kim Nalley, who more than held her own taking the front of the stage from such talented musicians. Without a doubt, this was my favorite band of the festival.

Verdict: While not quite good enough to get you to quit your high paying job and just go around the Bay Area following them wherever they perform, this is a band that you cannot go wrong listening to. I have yet to hear their albums, but if this performance was any indication of their quality, I had better track them down immediately.

Walking Around Again

After they packed up, my photographer and I had half an hour to walk around before the next performance and observe the crowd, which was surprisingly mixed. In attendance were the expected college students and somewhat, to put it politely, absorbed older music fans, but also were a lot of people who just wanted to be out of the house for the day. There were people of every stripe there and quite a few kids of all ages. I think that whoever you may be, this was as pleasant a way to spend a Saturday afternoon as anything you could find.

Walking along, we found a group playing outside a bookstore. I do not believe that they were part of the festival, although they were certainly better than the first act I saw. They were playing well, all told, but quite slowly. Honestly the musicians seemed a little out of it. We stopped to catch a couple of songs, but walked on soon enough.

Jai Uttal and the Queen of Hearts Orchestra

On the way back to California Street, we passed by Jai Uttal and the Queen of Hearts Orchestra, who had just started. About half a song later, we walked on. There is no way that I can write anything positive about this performance. The music was just so bad that not even a whole set of girls in saris on stage could save it, pretty though they were. This was simply not good.

Verdict: It is possible that I would listen to Miley-Cyrus-obsessed teenagers’ music before this.

Kim Nalley

With that, we came to what was probably the most highly anticipated performance of the day; Kim Nalley. The set started with the band warming up before she took the stage, and their playing was wonderful by itself. Of particular note was a piano solo from Kim Nalley’s sister who later provided backing vocals as well.

When Kim Nalley herself took the stage, she started with “Damn Your Eyes”, which was quite probably the best single song of the entire festival. Her entire performance was a tribute to Etta James, who died recently, and this was a good a start as could be imagined.

The next few songs, although greatly popular with the crowd, were not ones I personally enjoyed as I am not very fond of the style. While “Damn Your Eyes” was strong and personal, the other performances were much bouncier and lighter. Every now and again though, she would throw out a number of little facts and opinions, which she would put into little melodies of their own. This was an old-school performance and, in its way, quite excellent.

Besides, whether or not you really like her music, her voice is incredible. From her songs with the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, we knew that she was well worth revisiting and her own performance only bolstered that view. I would have preferred that she sang with more jazz and less soul, but however she sings, she does it well. Strong, powerful and teeming with emotion, her voice could make a career out of anything. You wasted your trip to Fillmore Street if you didn’t catch her.

Conclusions

This was well worth the trip on the first day. I wish that I could have attended the second as well, but the pressures of life made it impossible. Even if you don’t like jazz, there is plenty to do and the festival is very well managed. I will definitely go again next year and probably for many years after that.

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Party Time! Excellent! : A Top Five List of Essential Party Songs

6 Jul

So, it’s Friday night. You’re throwing the party of the year (or month, or day) at your place. You’ve bought yourself a new outfit (totally rockin’ those skinny jeans and Williamsburg-esque beanie), you’ve picked out the drinks (Pabst Blue Ribbon, what else?) and you’ve even rented a VCR from a quaint little vintage store (hey, it’s an idea). The only thing left is the bread and butter of your circle… the music. Whether or not your party will have its own hash-tag on Twitter will ride on this, you know it. You know that you can’t play the old stuff: MIA, CSS and Ratatat are a tad too trite for your taste. You also know that you can’t (God forbid) play Usher or Pitbull or LMFAO. What to do? Lucky for you, we’ve picked out five new songs that’ll get you dancing more than just the Shoegaze Shuffle.

5. “We Are Young”, by Fun.

Used in everything from a Chevrolet ad to WWE background music (!), American indie rock band Fun.’s “We Are Young” has officially broken into the mainstream, in a manner as grand as the song itself. Dramatic, marching-band drums unfold a feeble apology for the violence in a previous relationship (“I know I gave it you months ago/I know you’re trying to forget”).But, suddenly, the verse closes, the drums slow way down, and the song goes from an apologetic Bishop Allen to My Chemical Romance at a New York bar. And I’m not just talking about the video.

A slow jam/power ballad is hardly the type of music to suggest for a party soundtrack, and you might just sneer away this article at this point. But just wait until “We Are Young” hits the chorus (“Tonight, we are young/ So let’s set the world on fire, we can grow brighter than the Sun.”). Listen to how each syllable there is repeatedly enunciated and stretched and dramatized until your life somehow achieves melodramatic, Hollywood-tinted sunglasses, and you know why this song is such a cross-over hit. A better way to put it is this: everyone at your party will feel like they’re on the Gossip Girl season finale, full of drama and exhilaration and the heady rush of youth, and if that isn’t a formula for a great party, I don’t know what is.

Sidebar: We do have one bone to pick about this song. Janelle Monae possesses a divine voice that needs to be showcased (if at least for a verse), not delegated to mere backing vocals on the chorus. Ah well.


4. The House That Heaven Built, by Japandroids

You’re twenty years old: listless, restless and reckless to boot. You spend your days drinking, partying and falling in and out of lust. One such night, drunk on God-knows-what, all inhibition thrown out the window, you and your best friend find yourselves a guitar and a drum kit, and just decide to jam the buzz away, singing about drinking, partying and falling in and out of lust. If you’re thinking this is a good idea, it is: Japandroids did exactly this.

Their first album was aptly called Post-Nothing, which makes sense because the band isn’t post-rock, post-punk or whatever else. Japandroids make the kind of candid music that would require quite a bit of inebriation: and in that state, coming up with a genre for your sound would be impossibly contrived. Their second album is called Celebration Rock, and this is even more apt, for the eight songs here are just that: a celebration of rock, in all its original sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll nature, before certain artists ruined it with all that hair and ego tripping.

“The House that Heaven Built” is a post-break up song (“But you’re not mine to die for anymore, so I must live”) and a lusty invitation (“We’ll shove our bodies in the heat of the night/ All day the day after, blood in the skies”), which are both interesting elements to throw into your party. But best of all, the Japandroids are insanely fun when you’re drunk, and few things are more important than that.

3. Night and Day, by Hot Chip

Hot Chip’s 2008 single “Ready for the Floor” introduced a wide audience to the UK band’s dark, clever synthpop, which makes our job easier: we don’t have to spend entire sentences convincing you to listen to their latest single! “Night and Day”, from their latest album In Our Heads, is a hybrid genre monster (electronic disco-synth dance music?) that articulates, from beginning to end, of burning lust. Hot Chip makes absolutely no bones about it. “The way I feel about you, baby, in the middle of the night/ there’s just one thing that I can do to make me feel alright,” hints Alexis Taylor; later, he loses even that much politesse: “If I could be inside you darling, at the center of your life/ I’d write no more upon the page, we’d live with no disguise,” he slyly suggests.

Hot Chip are masters of penning sexed-up versions of 60s pop songs about love. Besides, disco-derived electronica is always the perfect soundtrack for creating a ruckus. Listen to the first five seconds of this song, and you’ll know why we insist that this is an essential party song.

2. Idea of Happiness, by Van She

Electronic/pop band Van She’s record label introduced them as “new band from Sydney fresh on ideas, fresher than Flavor Flav, fresh like coriander, fresher than the Fresh Prince, fresher than fresh eggs,” and we think they’ve got it spot-on. Van She appear to be Gods of the synthesizer: they make those electronic beats pop, pound, march or roll over you, in a very seamless manner. “Idea of Happiness” is the title track and first single of their second album, which releases today. Through the haze of electronica, the track just yells one thing at you: “Screw it all, it’s summertime.” It’s like Junior Boys remixed a collaborative track by Hot Chip and Passion Pit in the Sydney summer. Or, to put it better, Van She’s “Idea of Happiness” is three things: Sydney, synthpop and summer. In fact, their entire album seems to be about those three things, and we suggest you give it a whirl after you’re done with this party. Or maybe during.

1. I Love It, by Icona Pop

Here’s what you need to know about Icona Pop: they’re Swedish, they’re “90s bitches”, they just got out of a relationship, and they are loving it. Like, seriously loving it. In fact, they’re so over you that they threw your stuff down the stairs and drove their own car off the bridge, and guess what? They don’t care. About anything. To put it into perspective, it’s like someone teleported ABBA into 2012, got them drunk, and made them party with Ke$ha. Believe it or not, that entire combination produced one of the best tracks of the year, period. LMFAO, look out.

So there you have it. Give  our playlist a spin at the nearest party. And tell us what you think!

– Neeharika

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Rachael Price: The Good Hours

4 Jul

The Good Hours is a jazz album by 23-year-old singer Rachael Price, who is blessed with a voice comparable to that of the jazz greats (and uses this fact to great effect throughout this album). In fact, the first thing that will strike anyone listening to this album is how good Ms. Price’s voice is. You could place her tracks in between those of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and they would not seem a hair out of place. Her voice is far and away the strongest thing about this album and, despite the occasional instrument solo, is all you are likely to remember.

If you doubt her vocal prowess, listen to her version of “Skylark” or “Mood Indigo” – they may as well be a capella for all the impact the band makes. She moves into Samba jazz for a single song in the middle of the album called “Lagrimas Negras”, which, although a weaker track, is quite a fun change. A dabble in Samba is all well and good, but Rachael Price is in essence a classic jazz singer who just happens to be releasing records now, and she shines most on classic jazz songs.

This album does have its share of swing though. The first track, “That Old Black Magic” starts things off well and the album keeps its bounce throughout. It has all of the energy and the simplicity of a 1920s swing record and manages to reconstruct much of the feeling those albums would bring up. However, possibly as a result of all that old-time feeling, this album does not challenge the listener, which could be a fatal flaw in a jazz record. There are exceptions, such as “The Trolley Song”, which has all of the verve of Billie Holiday singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”. However, the majority of the songs, while not as easy-listening as a Kenny G record, are far from cerebral.

Although this is Rachael Price’s album, the band backing her does a quite solid job throughout. There are a couple of nice solos; the vibraphone in “That Old Black Magic” or the piano in “The Trolley Song” come immediately to mind. They do not stand out, but they perform quite well and do all that could be asked from them. The piano especially frames her voice excellently, but like any frame, is a distant second to the picture itself.

“The Trolley Song”, “Skylark”, “Stairway To The Stars” and “Mood Indigo” are all exceptional performances and should be picked up if you have any love of swing jazz or just good singing. The rest of the album however is nothing really special. If you have exhausted your Fitzgerald and Lady Day collections but want more, then this is certainly worth picking up and even otherwise you will have a quite solid album on your hands, just not a very challenging one.

Verdict: The lack of challenge in the album and a number of weaker performances keep this from being a masterpiece. However, the stand-out tracks make the album worth a listen, or five.

– Nikhil

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Joyce Manor: Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired

2 Jul

Last year, a young British band called Yuck channeled the apathy of 1990s’ teenagers into a near-perfect indie rock record. This year, a young band called Joyce Manor from Torrance, California does something similar, translating the manic restlessness of the 2000s’ into one of the best punk records in recent times. The nine songs on Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired will fill you with an agitated, sustained urge to dance and/or start a band: all within the album’s thirteen (!) minutes of running time.

Similar to Japandroids’ Post-Nothing, the chaotic jumble on Of All Things works well without ever veering into dissonant hipster nonsense (for example, Micachu). The headiness of youth takes you over for thirteen minutes and nine seconds, in bite-sized songs of pure energy.

“These Kinds of Ice Skates” sets the tone for the album, with tight drums, apathetic vocals and an exceptional skill at writing clever lyrics (‘And I don’t think you’re confusing refusal to heal/ With all your selfishness singing, “I know how you feel,”’), all within a minute and a half. “Comfortable Clothes, is a terse tribute to the energetic, fuck-all freedom of youth, reminiscent of Bows + Arrows-era Walkmen. Tracks like “Violent Inside”, “Bride of Usher” and “I’m Always Tired” are heart-felt paeans to youth’s insecurities and melodrama. Despite the mild anguish, however, the band faces as always towards Sunset Boulevard, reminding us of their heritage: that, whatever may come, it’s always sunny in California. (Sorry.)

A classic bass-line drives along the laid-back “See How Tame I Can Be”, but the groovy song bubbles with an undercurrent of adolescent angst (‘And it’s too much to take and so I say to myself, “I never told you that I loved you because I don’t.”’). However, one soon gets the impression that the angst may actually be a joke: that the song’s title – and tameness – is actually a back-handed, precocious compliment to Joyce Manor’s hyperactivity. And the result, hipster aspirants, is irony done right.

Another great song on the album is the mellow “Drainage”, an unexpected, seventy-one-second simple love song, complete with gently-plucked acoustic guitar and faint cello. “If I Needed You There” is Panic! At the Disco with an irreverent buzz cut; against all odds, the minute-long sonic blast not only comes across as a legitimate song, but its chorus even manages to embed itself in your brain.

All through the album, Joyce Manor subtly showcase their many talents underneath the mess and clutter. The band takes pop music, and gives it back to us – trodden, deconstructed and reassembled – and yet somehow pays tribute to it. They are highly skilled editors and arrangers: there isn’t an out-of-place or unnecessary second on the album. And finally, the band is entirely audio-oriented in today’s world of VEVO and pop superstars: they demand – and get – your undivided, aural attention. All of this, and more, comes together on the best song on the album, a cover of 80s one-hit wonder band the Buggles’ signature track, “Video Killed the Radio Star”. We honestly think it’s one of the best covers of the often-covered song, ever.

There are a few criteria that all great songs possess: they grab your attention, pack in as much passion as possible, showcase musical skill, provide intelligent lyrics and have melodic sensibilities. Joyce Manor’s songs rarely cross the two-minute mark, but every single one of them hits all these criteria. The album really is a study in brevity and (there’s no other word for it) genius.

The genius extends to the album cover and title too. The neat capital letters on the cover, defiantly but aesthetically jumbled, give you a good taste of the music that’s inside. The album title, too, strikes us as particularly ingenious. Joyce Manor is a band with enormous talent and very little patience for bullshit. They are confident enough to cut down their album to less than 90 degrees on the clock. Naturally, mundane things in life tire them, and this album is a divine distillation of all that.

Verdict: Of all things Joyce Manor may soon grow tired, but of Joyce Manor you will not very soon grow tired. If you have thirteen minutes and nine seconds of time, listen!

– Neeharika

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Anthems for the Insomniacs: Top Five Late Night Tracks

1 Jul


 
It’s 2 in the morning. The silence of the world outside is almost overwhelming. ‘Normal’ people are fast asleep by now. You, on the other hand, are wide awake. Perhaps you’re lying in bed, mind wandering in the midst of a journey with no fixed destination. Maybe you’re at your desk, midnight oil burning away as you attempt to use the uninterrupted free time and creative boost of that ghostly hour. Or maybe you’re just awake because you have nothing better to do. Either way, you need a soundtrack – music to set the tone for your night, to capture the peaceful, bittersweet, beautiful nature of true late night. Luckily, you have us to provide you with five such songs!

5. Cayman Islands, by Kings of Convenience

Norway’s traditional musical export of black metal is heavily challenged by the indie-folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience (KoC). “Cayman Islands,” from the band’s 2004 album Riot on an Empty Street, sets the scene perfectly for an extended late-night session of intense pondering. Melodic finger-picked guitars flow and meld together in warm, rich, relaxing harmonies, and serve as the perfect backdrop for Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe beautiful, mellifluous voices. Øye and Bøe sing in perfect unison, in a vocal dance with neither leader nor follower.


 
4. If We Cannot See, by Devics

“If We Cannot See” by Los Angeles indie-rock outfit Devics features the same reliance on warm harmonies, but on a much more grandiose scale. Dreamy, ethereal piano chords shift into overwhelming shoegaze-inspired guitars, as soft breathy vocals whisper-sing lyrics full of beautiful melancholy. It’s almost as if this song was designed to inspire the late-night bittersweet artist in you.


 
3. All I Need, by Radiohead

Radiohead has always been known for the quality of their music, the emotions their songs invokes and their almost uncanny ability to musically portray your thoughts. “All I Need,” from the album In Rainbows, carries on this tradition. Thom Yorke’s moody, melancholic voice and lyrics underscore the low, driving bass-line, textured soundscape and drumbeat. Echoes of guitars and pianos turn up in odd, unexpected places. The song’s climax is paradoxically both chaotic and melodically refined. “All I Need” is a gloomy, realistic vision of everything in your life that’s going wrong, but what better moment to reflect on all that than while lying awake in bed at 2AM?


 
2. Take Me Home, by Sulk Station

Bangalore’s first real trip-hop duo are a class apart in India, and not just because there’s almost no one else doing what they’re doing here. Sulk Station’s Rahul Giri and Tanvi Rao have been getting rave reviews from anyone who’s been fortunate enough to hear them. “Take me home” from the album Till You Appear features Tanvi Rao’s beautiful voice in all its haunting, understated glory, admirably supported by computer-and-synthesizer based music that stands toe-to-toe with the best chill-step out there. This is the kind of song that perfectly captures that raw, soul-weary, tired feeling you have after a too-long day of non-stop work. Too awake and alive to sleep, yet tootired to get out of bed? Throw this track on, lay back, close your eyes and let Sulk Station take over your mind and soul.


 
1. Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl, by Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene has been a critical darling almost since their inception, and is one of the few indie music collectives that does in fact do justice to the term “supergroup,” even if they do eschew the term. “Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” features everything you’d want in a late-night song. High, breathy, effects-laden vocals are sung over a lilting combination of soft strings, banjos, perfectly simple drums, and guitars that focus far more on atmosphere than technique (and rightly so). The song develops gradually, gathering momentum and building up to a sustained plateau that will keep you on a musical high long after the final notes have died down. Spend some time listening to the lyrics – in a few simple lines, they express what countless teenagers and college kids have gone through and continue to go through, as they grow up and find their (sadly all-too-often fake) identities. This song will both paralyse you and invigorate you, breathless, as your mind races with all the possibilities that lay before you.


 
– Manickam.

Agree with the top 5? Disagree? Let us know in the comments section! 

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Kaav: “Thee”

29 Jun

 

Kaav, Kerala’s own three-piece instrumental band, makes me truly excited to be a music listener in India today. In an industry where Indian-influenced rock has little real identity, Syam Pai (guitars) Shabeer Ali (bass) and Arun Kumar (drums) manage to stand out. It’s not difficult to imagine the group lying around on Vypin island on a stormy Sunday afternoon, making musical magic against the background of Kerala’s heavenly atmosphere. To witness this magic, look no further than “Thee,” a single from Kaav’s latest aptly named album Raphsody of Rains (produced with the help of Indian legend Baiju Dharmajan and Cochym Records).

“Thee,” means fire in Malayalam, and according to Kaav “represents the inner fire or the inner strength of humans that gets unleashed in different ways.” The song captures the essence of this strength perfectly, and constantly has throwbacks to the images brought up by the album’s title itself. It’s impossible to listen to the initial bars of the song without thinking of the first few smatterings of raindrops on a cloudy, thunder-filled day. The track starts up with a mood-setting clean guitar strum, accompanied by a low, warm, ringing bassnote and syncopated six-beat hat rhythm; slowly, the mood shifts as the music develops into a harder sound. Softly distorted guitars show up, with gorgeously melodic guitar and bass riffs. The song gradually builds up, but chooses to delay its breaking point – instead, we segue into a beautiful spoken-word excerpt from legendary film maker John Abraham’s “Amma Ariyan.” The critical point happens only after this, and remains wonderfully understated.  The song is then gradually brought back down to earth by a lone, squealing, wavering electric guitar note.

The song’s music video is a piece of art in its own right. Excerpts of Abraham’s film are interspersed in black-and-white with muted-colour clips of the band performing, in an artsy move that never crosses the line into pretentiousness.

Verdict: Kaav represent everything that the Indian music scene has to be hopeful about. Their music retains every inch of their Malayalli heritage, incorporates enough western influence to be accessible to a wider audience, and has a universality to it that cements it as a work of art.
Sidebar: Go check out Kaav’s website. It is *beautiful.*

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Top 5 Artists from Chennai

28 Jun

Due to a certain chain of events in my early twenties, I was made to spend the first half of this year in (what I assumed was) India’s capital of fervent orthodoxy, Chennai. When people heard of my move, they offered their condolences and (more often) their schadenfreude: but not one of them offered me a heads up about the thriving musical scene here. Now, when you see the words “Chennai” and “music” in the same sentence, it’s natural to expect the word “Carnatic” to pop up soon after. The only phrase I knew that went against this intuition was “Junkyard Groove”. But, as I eventually discovered, Chennai is one of India’s premiere hotbeds for young, alternative talent. Here’s a list of the best alternative indie that the city has to offer.

5. Little Babooshka’s Grind 

Rounding out the end of our countdown are the excellently-named veterans Little Babooshka’s Grind (LBG). They really are pioneers of Indian original rock music, making great electro-rock songs (see: “Doll” on the Blue Butterfly Express EP) way back in 1999 when most other bands on the scene were covering songs that had already been covered a million times. Songs like “Codeine” and “Money” brought sufficient funk to their old-school classic rock sound on first album This Animal is Called the Wallet, while “Basics of Life” is our favorite track off of sophomore album Bad Children.

They’ve been around for almost two decades, but the all-originals band isn’t going away anytime soon. Last November, they released new single “Big Words”, from the upcoming album Wake Up… The Break Up, when they got selected as one of the five bands at the Ray Ban Never Hide Sounds band competition. As an added bonus, here is a rare LBG cover of Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” at The Great Indian Oktober Fest, Bangalore last year!

4. Harsha Iyer

Next up on our list is a young singer-songwriter from Chennai whose debut made quite the splash last year. Harsha Iyer, at all of 19, released an album on which he wrote, sang, performed, and produced all of the twelve original tracks. Not bad for a kid who in an alternate timeline would be getting ragged by college seniors. Dabbling in a plethora of genres with a self-confidence that most 19-year-olds don’t possess, Harsha took the Indian indie scene by storm with Curious Toys. Tracks like “Overcautious” and “I Find You Boring” celebrate his considerable youth, whereas on songs like “Money” and “Not Dead Yet”, Harsha weaves tales of imaginary characters with surprisingly shrewd songwriting skills. The Chennai musician is now releasing a second album, a twenty-track behemoth, in two separate installments a month apart. His first single “Mystery Woman” is out already, and you should definitely give it a listen.

3. Adam & the Fish-eyed Poets

AATFEP is a real gem of the Chennai scene. The band is the solo singer-songwriter project of a certain Kishore Krishna, who also happens to serve as something of a mentor for younger city musicians like the above-mentioned Harsha Iyer. Both his debut Snakeism (a la the shape-shifting slitheriness of the genres on the album) and his sophmore Dead Loops are spectacular examples of what the country’s indie musicians can do if they push themselves to their boundaries. It really needn’t be said how there are far too many ‘indie’ ‘musicians’ in India who do no such thing. Snakeism in particular is dark, seething, stylish and clearly bursting at the seams with exceptional talent. “Black eyed Monster” and “Little Monkeys” are the shiniest in this gem box of a debut, whereas “Purgatory City” (Chennai?) captivates on Dead Loops. Don’t think too much. Go download both albums and just listen. Don’t be shocked if you are genuinely amazed at the influences and styles and genres that are at play in AATFEP’s work. This, my friend, is music for the cynics.

2. Junkyard Groove

At number 2 is the band that originally put Chennai on the indie map: Junkyard Groove, or JYG as it is fondly known. Ever since their debut way back in 2005, JYG has opened for some of the most famous international acts to perform in the country, and for good reason. Exceptionally refined production values, good songwriting, and truly gifted musicians: there is little that this band lacks. The energetic funk on “Feel Like a Knife” (from their 2009 album 11:11) entrances you seconds into the song, and just wait until you get to the fat bass interlude. “Folk You” and “It’s Ok” are pretty snazzy too. Their latest single “4 to 5 Things” sounds like a rocked-out Irish jig. We really suggest you listen to it.

1. The Shakey Rays

It’s hardly over-stretching the truth to state that there’s nothing in India quite like the Shakey Rays. Tight arrangements meet genuinely good songcraft in perhaps one of the most innovative bands ever to call India their homeland. You can literally listen to any five seconds off their debut, and conclude that it is both shockingly original and unnaturally good. Divine pop tunesmithery and a certain inimitable sense of musical intuition run wild and free on Tunes from the Big Belly, bringing up DMB and the Beatles and RHCP and the Kinks and whoever else with the greatest of skill: i.e., influenced by, but not imitations of. It can be safely said that there are about three or four new bands in India who have mastered this art, and possibly none as well as the Shakey Rays. As their name suggests, this band is truly the sunshine filtering through the smog of the Indian indie scene. Perhaps it is only apt that they hail from the city of year-round sunshine.

It’s impossible to pick favorite tracks on the album, but “I’m Gonna Catch That Train” is a good place to start. It takes a lot of talent to beat Junkyard Groove at their own game, but the Shakey Rays show immense promise. Music fans in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi rejoice, for the Rays are coming to a venue near you in July! Please don’t miss it.

Agree with the top 5? Disagree? Let us know in the comments section! 

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Spud in the Box: “54”

27 Jun

“54”, a song from fresh new Bombay band Spud in the Box, is the musical version of a double-take. The song starts off ridiculously upbeat: a sparkly, summery ditty of a man with a fondness for pretty legs and juicy kiwi (albeit mysteriously with a shrink in the picture). By the time the chorus kicks in, still California-sunny, the lyrics veer into hypothetical stalking, seemingly in an obsessive, puppy-love vein of things. Alright. Quirky, but not abnormal.
But pretty soon after that, things veer sharply left of centre. Hypothetical stalking turns into imagined, deranged conversations with Dr. Phil. Then the story pans out to include a mental asylum, a car trunk stuffed with his crush’s boyfriend and – you guessed it – a serial killer’s knife in hand. You have to listen to the final lines of the song to understand what the ’54’ here signifies, although you might guess it. Either way, the contrast of the overt morbidity in the song and the outrageously sunny music (How sunny? It could work as the background for a Go Goa TV ad. Seriously.) is really something to look out for.
Mind you, this entire panorama of morbidity happens as a mere backdrop to the caefree, sunshine music. Imagine Cake singing about serial killers. Or Jason Mraz providing the soundtrack to Silence of the Lambs.
Spud in the Box recently signed on to The Random Dream Project, a brand-new record label (launched May 31st, 2012) that hopes to be a one-stop shop for India’s best indie talent. If all artists are as good as Spud in the Box prove to be on this track, we’re very excited indeed to see that this label puts out.
Verdict: As you can see, we’ve got nothing but good things to say about this track. Listen, listen, listen! We love this folk-rock band.

– Neeharika

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Jack White: Blunderbuss

27 Jun

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Very few active musicians under the age of 40 today could be called living legends, but Jack White is truly one of them.

Blunderbuss, his fantastic debut solo album, is a rebirth of sorts. It channels his Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather past with some more White mojo, and more than a  touch of vintage White weirdness. In fact, it’s a cleaning out of sorts. Besides, his form’s much better here than his recent studio work, be it with the Strips or the Raconteurs. What’s most exciting is that Bluderbuss could well be the start of a great solo career for this modern-day Guitar Slinger.

The album kicks off with the very warm Missing Pieces, where the narrator’s being treated for a nosebleed by a woman but only wakes up to find his nose and legs hacked off, and the woman departed. Channeling vintage British prog rock tones, against the backdrop of a Rhodes piano, White sings lines like “Sometimes someone controls everything about you“, which pretty much sets the mood for the album. Produced in the backdrop of his divorce to Karen Elson, who also provides backing vocals, this song also packs in some brilliant lead guitar work. The spluttering guitar solo is sonic-perfect and melodious at the same time.  Freedom At 21, an avant-garde freak-out track peppered with peppy, breakfast hip-hop beats, continues with the anti-21st Century woman theme, with Jack White rapping (!) about a punishing femme fatale.

The first single, Love Interruption, invokes White’s gothic Dead Weather days, while second single Sixteen Saltines is the most Stripesque track on the album. A 1970s stoner boogie with heavy, filthy raunchy guitar (very reminiscent of  the White Stripes’s The Hardest Button To Button), this track is tinged with tones of jealousy and an angry falsetto that works.

 

 

The rather dark side one of the album is rounded out neatly by the title track, a beautiful piano-driven ballad about wordless love where White explains Blunderbuss as “a romantic bust, a blunder turned explosive“.

There’s a visible change in the mood from side two. The first song Hypocritical Kiss has White admitting his faults from the opening line itself, amidst the backdrop of some great piano waltz. Weep Themselves To Sleep, a staggering piano rocker, backed by some great JW electric guitar riffing, is very post-Ziggy Stardust 1970’s Bowie in its theatrics and inspiration. Interestingly, a bit of the album’s anti-woman sentiment continues on this song – “No one could blow the shows/Or throw the bones that break your nose the way I can,” sings White.

And as we come out of the busted noses part of the album, things are shook up with I’m Shakin’, an R&B cover of Little Willie John’s 1961 song. White absolutely sexes it up here with some great R&B riffs and hooks, making a blaster rocker out of this jook-joint classic. Trash Tongue Talker is White at his tribute-paying best. The piano riffs are reminiscent of his adopted Nashville roots while the vocals are reminiscent of Jagger in jive and 50’s bounce. The Nashville roots show up big-time again on the pedal steel in On and On and On, a psychedelic pop with a haunted piano accompaniment. I Guess I Should Go To Sleep has a jazzy tempo, great vocals, great piano fills and a beautiful violin solo.

While any of these tracks could be stand-alone stand-outs in any album, White has more than that up his sleeve, in the form of the best song on the album: Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy. With a great descending bass line, hopscotching rhythm and melody, White channels Dylan in his artistry and early 70s Kinks in his sound. Its irresistible arrangement is instantly lovable and makes it an instant JW classic, though it’s nothing like he’s ever done before. Also, it must be said that there’s no man out there who could do justice to this track quite like JW can.

The album closer, “Take Me With You When You Go” is an absolute JW cracker, backed by piano, fiddle and distorted electric guitar.  “And I can’t catch a breath or a break/Like a guy who’s strangled and begging,” White whines, only to push himself back on his feet with a hope of love. “Take me with you when you go, girl/Take me anywhere you go/I’ve got nothin’ keeping me, here/Take me with you when you go“. Quite a positive note to end on.

Blunderbuss is a great solo debut album. It has a great range in its influences, but still heavily steeped in the blues. But White doesn’t let the somewhat rigid structure of the blues contain him; instead, he rather uses it to paint a vivacious canvas. Last year, White’s contemporary and probably his only equal Derek Trucks’s Relevator won the Grammy for Best Blues Contemporary Album Of The Year, perhaps signaling the re-entry of the blues back into popular realms. Jack White, with his spectacular Blunderbuss, simply takes it forward. Hats off, Jack!

Verdict: Blunderbuss is easily 2012’s best album till now. Listen!

– Sayid.

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