SHEYA BOSE
INDIE
reviews
Two Lost
Souls (Taniya
Nambiar):
The charts have
long moved
away from rock
n’ roll. Perhaps
just as well, as
its origins were
the twisted
rhythms of the
downtrodden.
Blues, jazz,
and African-
American gospel
music did not
figure on Billboard. Rather, they served to externalise the
inner lives of men and women who spent much of their
existence under the boot of the powerful and brutal.
Still, recalling the authenticities of the genre is always
a source of joy. Take Taniya Nambiar. Her debut single
is firmly invested in the history of its sound. You can
imagine the hours she put in listening to Chuck Berry,
Elvis and maybe some Bee Gees? She creates extremely
danceable music, combining her clear loyalties to rock
with brushes of electronic tones. She does not bother
to depend on machine-generated blips to keep her beat
intact. Rather, she focuses on the kind of addictive
ambience produced by actively played strings and
effectively struck cymbals.
Take a moment to listen to Two Lost Souls. If nothing else,
you will find assurance in the fact that rock n’ roll, as
those of us knew it when MTV was more music and less
Jersey Shore, is not dead. It’s just wearing a disguise.
20
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
Thoughts (Big Bang Blues):
The men of Big Bang Blues have spent enormous amounts
of time listening to BB King, Marvin Gaye and Muddy
Waters. They admit as much in their interviews, but you
wouldn’t have to hear them say it to know it. Their love for
the swinging melancholy of field hollers and work songs that
African slaves chanted to keep themselves afloat while being
worked to the bone in cotton fields, is more than obvious.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys mused over making a
deal with the devil, much like Robert Johnson allegedly did.
Thoughts is a song of despair and hapless questioning, so
anyone familiar with the blues should find it in recognisable
territory. It asks pertinent questions: “Why are the
children’s bags being checked?” and states uncomfortable
facts: “People deciding which god is the best/ While the
trees are being cut to build their nest”. Essentially, the track
outlines the private ruminations self-aware and increasingly
disillusioned human beings.
The sound is classic backwater blues interspersed with
its close cousin (maybe once removed), rock n’ roll. While
Diyatom Deb’s voice and accent certainly does not hail from
Mississippi, they possess the grating lilt needed for songs of
lost worlds. The last one minute delves into some clutter in
order to promote a bombastic climax, but it quickly resolves
itself. I couldn’t say I am overwhelmed with wonder, but
Thoughts deserves to be heard. It invokes images of arid
landscapes and failing lives, but does it within an arousing
acoustic framework.