Indie Art Week Carnival: Soul-stirring indie music with a dash of comedy

Image Credit

Continue reading

Indie Art Week’s carnival is in full swing. And while it’s far away from the usual corporate, commercial, over-the-top music festival , certain things are happening there that will soon be adopted by the mainstream. Take the Sonic Drone showcase for example. While most festivals of arts have stuck to the same old, Indie Art Week is experimenting with fusing music with visuals and shooting it in 360 degrees to experience it later in virtual reality. That is spacey, mind-altering music dished out in an all-encompassing visual treat where you can immerse and surround yourself in. That’s a whole different way of experiencing music. Yet, the more traditional forms of performance were not compromised either.

Festival curator Rohan Kulshreshtha said, “We’re not cutting any corners in production. The stage will have everything these artists need.” And on Day 1, it was significantly obvious the moment Denver-based The Bluegrass Journeymen went up for sound check at the Grey Area. Indie Art Week may lack in the nifty bits of perfection and may look quite minimalist and bare-bones, but it has its soul at its right place- that of giving these prodigal minds space where they can flutter and take a flight to their fancies.

Take the Spotlight stage for example. There is nothing but a spotlight aimed straight at the performer. There’s no artwork on the walls behind other than tattered wallpapers coming loose. Chairs were strewn around inside the old warehouse. But there’s crystal clear sound and an eager (although negligible) audience ready to appreciate their work. On Day 1, the Spotlight stage hosted a stand-up variety show featuring a bunch of known faces like Pratyush Chaubey who was recently featured on BBC, Aman Deep who was featured in a NDTV documentary about rising standup comedians, Srijan Kaushik who derives his humour from his dysfunctional family, Rajnish Kumar who quipped along with his dramatic childhood stories and more. While these talents do perform all over the country in comedy clubs and elsewhere, IAW is commendable for bringing all of them together to unleash a laugh riot.

Also Read: Magnetic Fields festival 2016 review: A magical tango between music and sand

Day 1 also saw the Grey Area buzzing with good vibes and of course, good music. Antione Reddon kicked off the proceedings with his A Capella-dipped golden voice. A French man in India since 2006, he has absorbed the sounds of the country and fused it with his reggae origins creating a sound drenched with vocal richness and maddening guitar strums. His performance was followed up by Goa-based Ranjit Arapurakal whose ballads carry the smell of the ocean. He weaves fluid acoustic melody, something that you might hear from gushing out from a Spanish pub. Yet his words are closer home. He sang about his ‘underground’ indie brethren, of a lover in New Delhi, and even did a cover of Radiohead’s Karma Police. As his performance was coming to an end, he took the microphone to speak what was on our minds all through. “Indie Art Week is for all those who are tired of all these corporate, bolly music festival.”

What’s so special about IAW, you may ask? Wait till you soak up Mathias Durand’s sounds of nature. Singer-songwriter trained extensively in both Hindustani and Western classical presented a soundscape that transported the listener to a breezy open field where we sat drenching our souls to his French mumblings layered with frantic guitar strummings and spacey percussions by his Iranian and Zimbabwean friends.

The final act of the day had come all the way from Denver, California. Bluegrass Journeymen. A group of four intensely dedicated bluegrass musicians fronting an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, a cello and a banjo respectively, the Bluegrass Journeymen was all about movement and fluidity, of music that carried stories from the past. Their music was literally a journey down the Colorado river, floating downstream filled with vibes only the woody and velvety sounds of traditional Bluegrass can exude.

Also Read: Go: Madras 8 Was One Of The Best Festivals We’ve Been To and This Is What We Remember

I can go on about the music and what it did to us, but then it will only be an exercise gone vain. As avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson once said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. So instead of reading about these gifted minds wreaking havoc in our senses, why don’t you come along and witness them on your own?


(Photo Credits: Avinash SN)