Monica Dogra is multitasking

One half of indie music duo Shaa’ir+Func, Dogra talks to Bryan Durham about what’s been keeping her busy lately
Monica Dogra, one half of electro-rock act Shaa’ir+Func, has been keeping pretty busy. Sure, she was on her annual vacay a while back. But she’s now back to her head-banging ways sooner than you could say Together Again.
Expect to catch her and partner-in-crime Randolph Correia rock Pune as early as this Friday (apart from Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi) as they kick off their new mini-tour quirkily named I Am, We Are, You Is.
A few months back, she recorded a track with Mayur Narvekar of Bandish Projekt for BBC Radio’s The Bobby Friction Show on a segment called Friction Lab. She reminisces, “I was working on a single with the Projekt and shot a music video with them over two days. Immediately after, we rushed to record Friction Lab live. We had to come up with something within an hour, so we chose to mash up three tracks. One of the girls who had worked closely on the music kept humming 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, so we picked that. I had the theme song of Dhobi Ghat in mind as the music and the film changed my life, so that was there too. Then, for the last one, I chose an old Hindi song my mom used to sing, called O Basanti.” (Note: The mashup was called 50 Ways To Leave and Come Back).
Shaa’ir+Func hasn’t toured in four months now and Dogra admits as much. “I went around for my yearly visit to Los Angeles, Paris, Canada and Italy, and did some working and reading. Randolph was busy with the release of Bloodywood, his album with Pentagram. When we returned, we wanted to rework old songs we hadn’t played often for our new tour. We waited for the right time to kick it off.”
Ask her about the quirky tour title and she says, “It has something to do with the new wave sweeping the country. The new kind of filmmaking we’re coming across, the indie music scene rising in prominence and even the anti-corruption movement. In a way they’re all related. Randolph and I focused on it on a micro level when deciding how best to present our work in a new way. We saw the artwork created by Arpana (Rayamajhi), a really talented artist from New York, and almost instantly came up with the name.”
What’s the set list like? “There will be tracks from all three albums (New Day: The Love Album, Light Tribe and Mantis) reworked. But Together Again is a track we’re really excited about redoing. We’ve bought so much new gear... Randolph’s got a new vocal synthesizer among other things. And we’re working on an entirely analog set.” She adds as an afterthought, “We’ve been working for eight hours a day.”
We then ask her if she’s working on anything new. Turns out they are. “S+F is working on a new album
and I am working on a solo record as well. Then there’s also a collaboration I am doing with Gaurav Raina of the Midival Punditz.”
All in all, there’s much to look out for from this talented indie music goddess!