Indian Music

Have you ever looked at a gig lineup and felt complete confusion as to what performances are worth your hard-earned cash, time and precious auditory sensibilities? Well have no fear, we preview gigs here. Season or no season, Bangalore’s metal gigs will never cease in number. It’s been a tad stormy in the garden city this week, and we seem to have zeroed in on a cause. The clouds are aligning to prepare for the inevitable destruction of Bangalore. Doom is upon us – a Sonic Doom. It takes place on May 26 at Bangalore’s ION Bar and Kitchen, and features an appropriately doomy lineup of six of the heaviest acts of the South. But first, a poster: Are you ready for the doom? Djinn & Miskatonic Helmed by ex-Bevar Sea bassist Jayaprakash Sathyamurthy, the four-piece doom metal act has recently added a new guitarist to their lineup, and have, as they proclaim, “no groove, no melody, no progress”. Djinn & Miskatonic have a distinctively fuzzy, bass-heavy sound and should therefore be an apt, more ambient (in a doom-gloom way) opener for the night to come. The band are currently in the process of recording an EP, which is slated for a June release. They’ve also contributed a track to the Motorhead – Tribute India album. Sonic Doom will be their first gig with their extended lineup. “We’re not going to be playing anything we haven’t played before, but the songs will be arranged differently because we now have a new guitarist,” Sathyamurthy told us. “Expect music that is heavy and slow and bleak and not inelegant in its own way.” Stream some Djinn & Miskatonic below. Crypted Crypted are a technical death metal act from Chennai. They’ve been gigging around the underground metal circuit in the South for a while now. The band return to Bangalore after a 11-month gap – their last show in the city was the final leg of the Wacken Open Air Battle. At Sonic Doom, Crypted plan to play some of their newer material, which revolves around the theme of abnormal human conditions. Check out some material from the band below: Witchgoat With Kryptos guitarist Nolan Lewis and Bevar Sea vocalist Ganesh Krishnaswamy, Witchgoat is “an infernal alliance of the metal underbelly of Bangalore”. At Sonic Doom, the band plans to invoke the unholy through their set. That’s really all that can be said, we’ll just have to wait and watch. Orchid Bangalore prog-metallers Orchid have been working on some new material, and hopefully, they’ll perform it at Sonic Doom. The band rung in the new year with a set at The Pit 2 in the garden city. They also recently concluded a short course at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, and there’s no doubt that this could influence their performance on the night. Check out a relatively new track by the band below: Escher’s Knot Chennai metallers Escher’s Knot are a new addition to the Doom lineup, replacing Bed Ov Leeches. The band was among the opening acts for Lamb Of God last year (pics) and are known for their energetic live performances. They’ve also been playing frequent gigs in their home city, and have been writing new material over the past year. They return to Bangalore after a hiatus from the city, and plan to destroy with their set. Check out their music below: Shepherd Headlining Sonic Doom are local sludge/heavy rock act Shepherd. The band are set to release a full-length record later this year, and Sonic Doom acts as a precursor to it. The gig also marks the first time Shepherd headline a show, so their set is sure to be the highlight of the night. Stream some live recordings of Shepherd below: Sonic Doom kicks off at 4.00pm on Sunday, May 26, at ION Bar and Kitchen, Bangalore. Tickets are priced at Rs 350 and include a beer.

It’s the peak of summer and in the quest for cooler memories, take yourself back to the Bacardi NH7 Weekender 2012 in Pune. At the Jack and Jones Other Stage, a surprisingly large variety of acts gave us some memorable performances but one act that might have gone under the radar for most scenesters is Mumbai pop-rock act Carlton and The Saints (read about them at the Weekender here). The quintet is fronted by Carlton Vaz who was a singer-songwriter for a few years before forming the band. Carlton and The Saints are releasing their new album Jumpstarted really soon and on Monday, June 27, we’ll be giving out their track ‘Long Walk Back Home’ for a free download. All you have to do is share the video (also releasing on Monday) for their song ‘Day Dreaming’ on your Facebook or Twitter account. We spoke to Carlton Vaz who told us more about the album, open mic nights and the video for ‘Day Dreaming’. NH7: How did you guys get together and when did you begin work on your debut album? Carlton Vaz: I used to play the early set at Blue Frog. I started out over there in 2010 and I used to play alone until I met Sanchez Fernandes and we played together until we slowly started getting joined by the other guys. In March 2012, we played our first show together as a band when we opened for another band at Blue Frog. I can’t really remember who it was that we opened for that night. We started out on the album right away. So from April 2012 to March 2013, we worked on the album and finished it. It would have been done in August 2012 but the studio we were recording at had some technical problems and then we lost a lot of the recordings and had to start again. Since 2008, I have written about 30 songs and we used some of those songs in our album. The rest of the band took their parts of the song and added their own flavour to it. The video for ‘Day Dreaming’ is definitely not based in India, so how did you end picking this foreign setting in the video? Once we came out with the album we thought we would make a music video to launch the album. We found Karakoori Productions because they made a video for The Koniac Net (he’s talking about this video) and I got in touch with Khurum Khan from Karakoori about making a video for us in October 2012. I asked if he was interested and if he wanted to go ahead with and he said he’d think about it. I met him again when we were mastering the song (‘Day Dreaming’) and he took the lyrics from me and then pitched the concept. I liked the idea and he went ahead and shot the video in just one weekend. Karakoori Productions is based in London which is why he did all the filming there. Carlton and The Saints perform at the Jack and Jones Other Stage at The Bacardi NH7 Weekender. Tell us about ‘Long Walk Back Home’. The concept of the song is about a guy in love with a girl and they have something together but then he asks questions that have been bugging him only for her to break it off with him. Now he asks for a second chance because he’s got a long walk back home all alone. So are all the songs ballads or love songs? No, not at all, we’ve got a catchy song about gelato and how we love it. We’ve got a song called ‘The Fighter’ which is all about believing in yourself, it’s a bit serious but it’s got some nice violins in there. There’s a song call ‘Sober Not Drunk’ which is anther catchy song that started out because of this night at Zenzi. It was an open mic night and this guy who was probably drunk grabbed a guitar went up on stage and made a real attempt at performing! How much did these open mic nights help you out as an artist? The open mic nights really helped me a lot with learning what audiences want but I was always singing and playing music. I’ve been performing since my school days and I entered every competition I could. I even had a

Here's what we're planning to do this weekend. Join us...? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofL1AaiTjo Available on iTunes: http://bit.ly/17PVt6e

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With An Ode To The Blues set to hit Bangalore soon, we decided to get our resident blues advisor Abhishek Khan to curate this special Five at 5 for you. Tune in. Want more blues? Tune into our blues station on the UE Radio above, and get your Friday (or daily) dose.  1. Chronic Blues Circus – ‘Restless Woman’ This is lazy blues track set to a slow blues shuffle. It has all the classic elements of the old school blues – blues harmonica, slinky lead tones, and a blues rant. 2. Blackstratblues – ‘Folkish Three’ Hardcore fans have already heard this live plenty of times. This track is indicative of the kind of sound his new album will have. Now here’s a guitarist who can take all the traditional blues elements but keep it so fresh and soulful. There’s no replacement for ‘soul’ in music. 3. Monica Heldal – ‘Conman Coming’ Monica Heldal plays fingerstyle acoustic blues with a folkish tinge. Her fingerstyle playing is to her voice what a frame is to a painting. Her tracks have that sparkling chime on which she lays her clear voice. But in this track, she isn’t anything like that. 4. Frankie Chavez – ‘I Don’t Belong’ Blues has lost all relevance in 2013. I believe the artists themselves are to be blamed. One needs evolved sense of re-inventing the genre and keep it fresh. I-IV-V7 just won’t cut it. Thanks to The Black Keys and Gary Clark Jr. there’s hope. Portugese guitarist Frankie Chavez is amongst those blues musicians who’re keeping things fresh and real. 5. C2C – ‘Down The Road (Bernhart Acoustic Cover)’ This is an acoustic cover of C2C’s most popular song. Which is the only time I’ve heard blues and glitch-hop collide. And the only time blues and electronica come together. These are the kind of guys who’d become the torchbearers of blues. Blues is isn’t in I-IV-V7, it’s in the soul. Whatever the flavour. More details for An Ode To The Blues here, and check out previos editions of the Indiecision Five at 5 here.

Have you ever looked at a gig lineup and felt complete confusion as to what performances are worth your hard-earned cash, time and precious auditory sensibilities? Well have no fear, we preview gigs here. Providers of quality musical entertainment Live From The Console are back with an edition of their monthly (usually) showcase which seems more promising than any other gig currently taking place in the city. LFTC at Mehboob Studios in Bandra on Saturday, May 25, will feature three performers: singer-songwriter dayglocrazie, Chennai electro-rock band The F16s (who are also performing in Bombay for the very first time) and Kolkata post-punk band The Supersonics (pictured). Considering all of the above, it isn’t hard to see why no one would not want to be at the gig but since not all of us are fans of Maby Baking (The Supersonics’ debut album) or fighter jets, we decided to provide a little more context by speaking to each of the featured players of the evening. Documentary The documentary being screened at this edition of Live From The Console is actually something that is part of VICE’s The Creator’s Project. In The Collaborators, a camera crew speaks to people who have collaborated on Daft Punk’s latest release Random Access Memories (our review here) and asks them how it was working with Daft Punk. For fans of the French duo, this will be an amazing watch because it will reveal how the mysterious duo work. For people who aren’t fans, it might end up being a documentary that is kind of entertaining, if they are intrigued by the mystique of Daft Punk and want to know more. dayglocrazie dayglocrazie is singer-songwriter Pratapaditya Deb, who will kick off the first set of the evening. The singer-songwriter plans to play a short, five-song set that will see him perform original songs. Deb performs in English with sprinklings of Assamese and his music is folksy and he’s got the kind of tunes that can get stuck in your head for at least an hour or so. This will be his second performance in the city, the first having occurred at a previous edition of BOMB.Thursdays at Kino 108. Listen to ‘Prem Dibi’ by dayglocrazie below. The F16s The F16s are from Chennai. Normally, considering all the depressing music that the city creates (read Adam And The Fish Eyed Poets), they shouldn’t sound so cheerful, but they are. The band have recently participated in a number of battle-of-the-bands and band hunt competitions and have generally been very well-recieved with their brand of electronic-infused pop-rock. The band haven’t played in Mumbai before and have therefore planned a show where there will be no mess-ups of any sort. We spoke to keyboardist Harshan Radhakrishnan to find out what the band have in store for the city. We are playing with a new lineup. Viraj Yesudas (lead guitars) will not be playing with us. Instead we will feature Abhinav Krishnaswamy (of Adam And The Fish Eyed Poets) as part of the lineup. This will be our first show with Abhinav and our first show in Mumbai so we’ve planned everything out well and we’re really hoping it’ll be a good set. We’ll play about 12 or so songs and the set list will include a Vampire Weekend cover. The F16s are also planning to release an EP called Kaleidoscope soon and will be releasing a new single from the EP once they go back to Chennai. The band is expecting to release the EP in a couple of months, at the most. Listen to ‘You Can Wonder’ by The F16s below. The Supersonics The final band of the evening will of course be The Supersonics. The Supersonics have become a hip household name over the years, ever since they released their extremely well-received debut album Maby Baking. The band broke up to much chagrin of a multitude of fans, so when in a time long forgotten (when Indiecision forums existed), the question “Which band would you like to see reunited again?” popped up, their name was cited more than almost any o

Naman Saraiya goes behind-the-scenes with The Supersonics in Kolkata and gets the scoop on the new music they've been working on.

Here's an early 80s Kalyanji Anandji score featuring a couple of really good songs. The poppy, sitar-driven 'Sathiya Re' is almost a cousin to 'Apradh's 'Ae Naujawan Hai Sub Kuchh Yahan'; possibly not as funky but equally compelling; and 'Pardes Men Jake To' manages to be infectious without having a very strong melody, boosted by jazzy interludes and neat keyboard (Clavioline?) riffs.From what I've read, 'Kashish' is another film about traditional Indian values being corrupted by dubious Western activities; drinking, drug taking, dancing, pre-marital sex. The instrumental 'Music Theme' apparently serves as background music for a drug scene; typically it's wonderful and I wish it was on YouTube.Track listing:1. Asha Bhosle: Pardes Men Jake To 2. Mohd. Rafi: Kisi Aasman Pe 3. Dialogues 4. Suman Kalyanpur & Kishore Kumar: Sathiya Re 5. Dialogue 6. Music Theme

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