MUMBAI: Delhi-based Fusion-Rock band Indian Ocean’s upcoming album ‘Tandanu’ has had quite a brouhaha surrounding its release. A collaborative collection of seven tracks for their seventh album has respected and established names like classical singer Shubha Mudgal, multi-instrumentalist and tabla maestro Karsh Kale, violin maestro Kumaresh Rajagopalan, kanjira expert V. Selvaganesh, Grammy-award winning instrumentalist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Pentagram-frontman and Bollywood composer Vishal Dadlani.The making of the Shubha Mudgal collaborative, ‘Gar Ho Sake’ was aired on Pepsi MTV Indies on 26 April and the track was put up exclusively on iTunes. Radioandmusic.com caught up with Amit Kilam, vocalist and percussionist with Indian Ocean to know more about the album. He revealed who worked on the album art work, Pepsi MTV Indies, the filming the music making process and a surprise for the fans.
How long have you been working on the album?
The idea has been with us for a long time. The collaboration with Shankar Mahadevan, ‘Tandanu’, was something that we had done a year and a half back at the Storm Festival. Actually, we started working on this album in October 2013, when we got the go ahead for it. As a band, we have been composing and perfecting these tunes for a year now.
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You have collaborated with seven artistes. How did you decide to work with them?
We have always wanted to collaborate with many artistes. But, a few of them were already in place. Like with Shankar, we had already jammed and had a few practice sessions with Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt for a show and with Shubha Ji too for years. Some names were already on our list but the others, too, we made sure were people that some of us knew. We sat down and thought of people who we could work with and what their thoughts are and that they were good people in general. We had to makes sure that we weren’t collaborating only with vocalists or only instrument players of one kind.
How did the tie up with Pepsi MTV Indies come about and when?
It is a new channel that has nothing to do with Bollywood. So it was only natural that at some point our content will go there. Since they just started the channel and we have good relations with the people at MTV, we told them that we were coming up with something like this. We also told them we were shooting every bit of our work with the other artistes and they suggested airing the episodes on the channel instead of just our YouTube channel. The 15 minute videos are made by us. I think the tie up happened sometime around December 2013 or January 2014.
‘Longing’ is the only instrumental track on the album. How did that come about?
Our process is like this; we create the music and tune first and then at a very later stage we decide if we want to add lyrics to it. It just so happens that this album has one instrumental track. In fact, we were thinking of having one more song without lyrics but we let it go. The way we composed the track just made it complete. There is a vocal melodic hum in the track and it sounded nice. We wanted it to be open to interpretation.
How long have you been shooting the episodes?
Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was the first of our collaborators who came in and practiced with us at our place in Delhi in the first week of December. The artistes came to Delhi for about two days and stayed with us to co-compose and co-write the tracks. We would carry more elements. Since we had a few of our ideas and tunes ready since last year, when the collaborators came to us we already had some tunes and half baked ideas to present them with. We started recording from 16 February 2-14 in Mumbai, and then each of these seven artistes came on a day and we finished recording.
Why Single Screen Films to produce the episodes?
The people working at Single Screen Films have been working with us over the years and have been involved in our earlier video ventures. They know how Indian Ocean works and sounds. So there was no doubt on who would produce the episodes. Each song has an episode on the making that will go on air one per week; so it will be a seven week activity. But the collective album will be available for purchase during the second or third week of May. At some point, we are also looking at releasing the seven episodes on CD/DVDs.
On which portals will you be releasing the songs?
The album will mainly go up on iTunes, our website, Pepsi MTV Indies’ site and the Times Music site. The first song should be going up on Gaana today or tomorrow. We will also be putting out an LP of the album, in addition to the CD.
Who did you have design the album artwork for you?
The album artwork has been designed by a friend of ours who happens to be the lead vocalist of the band called ‘Swarathma’, Vasu Dixit. I actually saw the album artwork that he did for his band’s album and I discussed with him about two years about doing the artwork for the next album Indian Ocean put out.
Do you have an India Tour following the release?
Yes we are planning on a tour post the album launch but we do not have many details on that yet. We are trying to get the seven collaborators on board for these shows but it is very difficult. But something big is going to happen.
Is there something special coming up for the fans?
Our entire discography will be available on iTunes in about two or three weeks. But the videos will come out much later, after the seven episodes are aired. There will be seven Indian Ocean albums and a live DVD. We are already working on a few more songs and we may just put up unheard material. Anything may happen. (laughs)
The band features Amit Kilam on drums, vocals and percussion, Rahul Ram on bass guitar and vocals, Himanshu Joshi on vocals, Tuheen Charavorty on tabla and percussion and Nikhil Rao on guitar.
