Music, especially of a band like Advaita, doesn't mean what's to the ears alone. “A psychedelic fusion band from India, New Delhi,” as it calls itself, has as a part of its stage concerts a highly visual component — stage lighting especially — though on the music count alone it ranks among the best in the country.
With the aim to ensure that the band's live performances outside hometown Delhi are equally well-packaged, Advaita recently embarked on a five-city ‘Grounded in Space' tour (Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi, in that order) with its entire technical team in tow, which included Priya Mathews (on light design) and Nick Atkins (sound).
The mission was to familiarise audience outside Delhi with Advaita and see that the experience is not removed from the music. The album ‘Grounded in Space' was launched in March 2009.
To a large extent, it has been a successful experiment, says Advaita's lead guitarist Abhishek Mathur. “We did manage to do it in Bangalore and Kolkata, though in Hyderabad and Pune we didn't get the required people,” he says. “We've had some bad experiences while performing outstation in the past. The lights suddenly start flashing during a soft part or don't come up when needed. The ambience is important. For example, you can't watch a classical performance where the people are chatting or the lights are too bright. ”
The reason most bands in the country don't travel with their technical teams is obvious. Overheads are high, specially, as Mathur says, if it is an eight-member group like Advaita. “‘You want more?', is what the organisers tend to ask,” Mathur says.
“In Delhi we always manage better shows. We know what we need — the sound vendors, the technicians. But when we're travelling and are performing as part of another event, either the setup is missing or the technicians are not used to us,” says Mathur, one of the founding members of Advaita.
“The tour is something we wanted to do last year itself. Spreading the album (“Grounded in Space”) and generating a response nationwide is a priority,” he says.
“The tour is just a prototype of what we want to do. A band organising its own concerts is something new. Of course, sponsor support is crucial. Next season we want to try and include more venues,” Mathur says.
Diverse genres
Since its formation in 2004, Advaita has carved out a niche in the city's competitive band circle with a music that is a mix of Hindustani, electronic and western, which comes from a bunch of musicians of equally diverse genres. Besides Abhishek Mathur, there's Anindo Bose (keyboards and electronics), Chayan Adhikari (lead vocals, western), Ujwal Nagar (lead vocals, Hindustani), Aman Singh Rathore (percussion), Suhail Yusuf Khan (sarangi and Hindustani vocals), Mohit Lal (table and percussions), Gaurav Chintamani (bass guitar). A video of the track “Rasiya” from the “Grounded in Space” album, is a YouTube hit. The mellow classical-based track, however, didn't find airtime on television channels. “It's an age of Bollywood and reality TV. ‘Rasiya' could't be aired on TV due to channels' fixed corporate policies,” rues Mathur.
Good news is, the video for the second track, “Durga” is now under production. It's more “marketable” and is likely to go on air soon.
Is the second album in the pipeline?
“Our first album consisted of music done over a period of four years. Then, of course, logistics took up a lot of time. The good thing about Advaita is, we keep writing. For a new album we need to decide a few things, like how and where to record, the identity of the album, i.e., what kind of sound… But we just feel that “Grounded in Space” still has a lot of legs to it, more potential. For the new album, we have the material ready. If we want we can start working on it tomorrow.”
