Chalk & Cheeze (Chalk & Cheeze) :
Another day, another debut.
Nitish Chachra and DJ
Cheeze (who likes to stay
anonymous) join hands (or
consoles) with acclaimed
Bollywood producer
Sandeep Chowta to create
what they call House Music
without Borders. By this,
they mean including more
unpredictable elements
into the mix, such as the
winnowing strains of a
sarangi in Shukravaar
or slivers of a 90’s disco in Budhvaar. If you hadn’t
noticed, the songs are named after days of the week.
There’s a fair amount of quirk in the album, which is how
the duo tries to stand out from the glut of all-too-familiar
house music saturating clubs and house parties. While the
album does not feature any groundbreaking instances of
fusion or eclecticism, that might be intentional. There’s
enough variation to make listeners curious about a new
musical aesthetic, but not so much that they might hit
Pause or pick a different album. If this is true, ten points
for strategy, though maybe not for experimentation.
Nonetheless, listeners are rewarding the duo’s choices.
As of writing this, Chalk and Cheeze have been #1 on
the iTunes Charts as well as the iTunes Dance Charts
for three days in a row from its release on 31st January
2020. They are certainly dabbling with a new direction,
something which invites the audience to listen more
closely to the space between the beats. This is a welcome
act, especially in a musical realm which, atleast to the
uninitiated, doesn’t offer more than a series of 4/4 beats
that make most sense after way too much alcohol.
KAPOW! (KAPOW!): An absolute
delight emerges out of the
void, in the form of the
eclectic, impulsive KAPOW!
Barely a year old, they have
already managed to release
an album that is, in equal
parts, all over the place and
held perfectly together.
The band is audaciously
experimental, and
incredibly pleasant. Their
music is fun in a million
different ways. Sultana
plays with dream-pop, rolling in secretive whispers
and semi-cryptic lyrics. It seduces the listener to
strange places in their own head, especially when the
violin gently hits. “You’re just a tourist in your own
life”, says the song - and you are inclined to agree.
Start Again hits all the right notes for a love-laced rock
ballad. But the band avoids the hell of being repetitive
by creating a song that is utterly charming. They
used well-used riffs and play a bristling crescendo
that sounds familiar, but never boring. It does the
one thing every song must do - sound good.
Underwater Roadtrip is an homage to lovers of the happy
green plant. It is appropriately quirky, upbeat and sprinkled
with a few funky turns. Conceptualizing the plant as an
ideal lover Mary Jane is an old trope, but these guys build
an entire homage to her - from her backless to her tender
fingers and how can melt your thoughts into smoke. This
isn't a typical stoner anthem - it’s almost romantic,
KAPOW! slightly misses the mark with Want Some
Get Some. It’s a Wild West inspired rock ditty that
channels enough ominosity to fit into Stephen
King’s Dark Tower series. But they try slapping on a
Mexican edge, and it doesn’t really come off as totally
natural. Cries of “Arriba!” sound shoehorned in just
for the sake of novelty. It doesn’t work too well.
Nonetheless, the album is impressive. It’s fun, eclectic and
provides a fair number of pleasant surprises. There are
songs to party to, songs to get pensive to and songs to lay
back and zone out to. KAPOW! certainly tries to mess around
with genre, and this has resulted in a good, good sound.
Baatein (Sudeip Ghosh) :
Sudeip Ghosh called his
album “a soundtrack for
reminiscence”. There’s a
ring of truth to that. Most
of his songs are pretty
heavy on the nostalgic
element, whether in lyrics
that dwell on the past or
musical influences that
clearly channel classic
rock. Tere Liye, for
example, sounds like a
perfectly balanced mash of
Boston and Deep Purple.
Aasman goes another way, summoning the saccharine
tones of Indipop (I’m talking a touch of Euphoria).
Ghosh also weaves in touches of Indian classical tones.
He certainly does not feature them as prominently as he
does the Dream Theatre-inspired shredding. Most of the
time, the music is built on a steady foundation of the good
old rock ballad. Dastaan is a prime example of this.
Udgam, however, is a departure from the norm. It's a
spiritual paean that urges faith and letting go. It also
features a spontaneous-sound sitar jam on (or is it a sarod?)
that melds nicely with laid-back electronic textures. The
song melts into Aum, a clear continuation, in which Ghosh
ends Hindi lines with singular English words and claims
the eternal one-ness of the primal syllable Om. The rock-
styled riffs are back in this one, and the whole thing comes
off as a fond memory of Colonial Cousins and their ilk.
Baatein definitely deserves a listen. It’s uncomplicated
and chock full of familiar melodies. Anyone born in the
90’s will find themselves traveling back in time to an
era of cassettes and loyalties to Pentagram. The album
carries an element of authenticity - Ghosh is singing
things he believes in. It just happens that he believes
in pushing the right buttons for musical time travel.
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
19