SHREYA BOSE
Indie Reviews
Hummingbird (Tamish Pulappadi): A 15 year old is
obsessed with Guns N’ Roses, and spends his days covering
Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Slash, Kirk Hammet,
and Steve Harris. He has been inducted into the Brotherhood
of the Guitar, an effort initiated by famed photographer
Robert Knight (one of the first professionals of his kind to
photograph Hendrix) to identify young talent across the
globe. He is also brand ambassador of Ernie Ball Music Man.
At 15.
This Begaluru wunderkind has a Facebook page is
strewn with expertly crafted covers, and he has only
recently ventured into fermenting original creations.
The first of them is Hummingbird, a guitar-god
paratrooper that is a delicious slop of Joe Sat-Steve Vai
topped with Mamsteem bacon bits. While technical
precision is obvious and in excess, the beginnings of
his powerful, youthful sentiment also seep through.
The music is exuberant, bursting with possibility. The
musician is joyful, bristling with the splendour of his
own ability. He is reverent, and one can hope, on the
verge of becoming wildly experimental. He moves from
note to chord to arpeggio with such delight that you
cannot resist becoming delighted yourself. This one is a
happymaker, and spreads some awe along the way.
22
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
Everything is Play (Groovemeister): An impressive
debut has occurred. A quintet rumbles around in
recording studios and their own dreams, spinning
pleasant but hurried stories out of sound.
The Groovemeister sound is sprightly. It fits right into the
frenzy of a good old jazz club, and lapses just as effortlessly
into the debonair charm of funk. One mustn’t miss that it
took four years for the band to create a sonic aesthetic they
liked for themselves. The particular exhilaration that marks
every debut is unmistakable, though they do have moments
of ominosity that disappear as quickly as they bubble up.
The band describes the album as reflective of their formative
years, which explains some of the rough edges you might
encounter. Songs like It’s A Boy! and Little Kicks are rollicking,
carnivalesque affairs, created by men who could not be more
enthralled by what they are doing. Every song is a refined
rampage of joy and wonder. “Try something
new!” say these four instrumental
odes to living without hesitation.
When listened to at a stretch, one
does risk sinking into a little bit
of monotony, especially when
transitioning between It’s
A Boy and Wayfarer. But
there is no getting away
from the unembellished
gusto with which the
music plays - tailored
for celebration of all
things living and
all things life.