Indian Ocean collaborates with Bollywood's top musicians

Indian Ocean’s latest studio album Tandanu, their seventh in 25 years, features collaborations with seven different artistes for each track. A fitting innovation from the pioneers of Indo-rock, but not the onlyone.The band has also produced seven short films for each track, and every week, will release one track (on MTVIndies and digital platforms such as Times Music) along with its video.Three tracks — Gar Ho Sakey, Behney Do and Tandanu have been released in this manner so far, and the band plans to release the complete CD in June.
We spoke to the band members about the experience of each collaboration. Himanshu Joshi,vocals Song: Gar Ho Sake with Shubha Mudgal, classical Indian and pop singer. “Initially a song by Kabir with Shubha Mudgal was planned but didn’t work out. That’s when Amit suggested Gar Ho Sake— an old and popular song with activist groups in North India. Shubhaji was familiar with the song too,” says Joshi. “I have known her for a fairly long time. There was great bonhomie with her and the process of composing the song was organic. She is a great mimic, you’ll see bits of that in the video of making of the song.”
RahulRam,bass guitar andvocals Song: Tandanu with Shankar Mahadevan, music composer and playback singer. “Tandanu is a rhythmic word with no intrinsic meaning. It is an old folk song from the Belur-Halebid region of Karnataka. I first heard it from my aunt when I was 3 year sold,” says Ram.“The song has been with us from a very long time. This album presented the perfect opportunity to work on the song.” Some of the elements in the song reminded the band of Shankar Mahadevan’s Breathless. “The band first performed this song on stage with Shankar in January 2013. He has constructed a beautiful solo for the song that is there in the album.”
Amit Kilam, drums and percussion Song: Roday with Vishal Dadlani, Hindi film music director, playback singer and Pentagram frontman. “Roday is about displacement of people for various reasons — political, religious or developmental. The song is mostly in Bhilali, Sindhi and Kashmiri with a bit of Hindi & Pushto. It had a rock-heavy feel,” says Kilam. “What really amazed me during the making of the song was that Vishal wrote the lyrics for his part, composed itandevensangit—all in 15 minutes. Incredible.”
Nikhil Rao, lead guitar Song: Cheetu withV Selvaganesh,percussionist. “Rahul (Ram) learnt this song almost 20 years ago when he was an activist in Narmada Bachao Andolan in MP/Gujarat. The song is aboutCheetu—aBhil(adivasi)whosebungalow wasconfiscatedbytheBritishandconvertedtoa prison. Incidentally, Rahul was once jailed duringhisstintwiththeNarmadaBachaoAndolan, and the police thana was actually Cheetu’s bungalow,”recountsRao.TherhythmcycleofCheetu is very unusual. “We felt that Selva, who is probably one of the greatest percussionists currentlyinIndia,withhisuniquestyleofinterpreting rhythmic structures might enjoy playing around with this song. Selva’s technique is way ahead of ours, but he never tried to overshadow the song — the mark of a great musician.”
Tuheen Chakravorty, Indian percussion Song: Charkha with Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt,Grammy-winning classical music instrumentalist. “For this album, we always wanted to do a song with Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt,” says Chakravorty. Initially things didn’t work out. “But when Bhatt played a riff on his MohanVeena, it complemented the songs that the band had done earlier with a few Santhali musicians. Then, Sanjeev Sharma, our lyricist added words to the composition, and Charkha was made.” Chakravortyadds,“Incidentally,the first classical concert I ever heard when I came to Delhi was a performance by Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. I was surprised tha the has good knowledge of the tabla. I learnt a lot from him. All of us worked in sync for this composition to take shape. I was blown away.”
The album also features two other collaborations, Behney Do ft Karsh Kale, music composer and producer, and Longing, ft KumareshRajagopalan. Behney Do is a song about breaking free, and the band calls working with Kale an “amazing” experience. Longing, meanwhile, was a product of the band’s exploration of working with compositions that begin in a particular raag. On Kilam’s suggestion, they decided to work with the violin on this song. And who better than one of the country’s best violin players — Kumaresh Rajagopalan — to do that. “Kumaresh’s sense of humour made it very enjoyable,” says Rao, who was involved in the post-production work of the album.
A treat for the eyes and ears, this album promises to be.