KARISHMA D'MELLO
SPIRIT
U N B O U N D
Exploring Independent music in India
S
hot and edited by Tonmoy Saha,
one of the few documentaries about
indie in India, “Spirit Unbound”
attempts to explore the lesser known
genres of Indian music. Featuring only a
handful of artists, some old, some new –
they express their thoughts and opinions
on Indian indie, anecdotes from their
experiences as artists and other random
trivia that might interest a hard core fan.
This forty two minute documentary was
released in August of 2014 and can be
viewed on the NDTV Prime time website.
By no means would I consider it the best
of documentaries on the subject (the best
being Ravi Singh’s six part documentary
“Standing By”), but it is nevertheless a
decent attempt as an independently funded
endeavor. A recommended watch for those
who are genuinely obsessed with learning
more about the featured bands or artists.
For the rest of you, who don’t get around
to watching it or are the kind to read tons
of reviews before you have a gander at a
show/ video – here’s a quick synopsis of
who’s on it and what they talk about!
It starts off with Ankur Tiwari
expressing his thoughts on music and
the insignificance of its classification as
independent or mainstream. He speaks
about his life as a musician and his
encounters with genuinely kind hearted
people over time. Parikrama’s Subir
Malik, speaks about Bollywood and
sales and offers up his insights on what
really makes music “conventional”. He
explores the evolution of music in India,
indie-pop and the age of the internet
and also why as a band – they have zero
qualms about playing covers. This also
features some interesting anecdotes that
involve Iron Maiden and Parikrama’s
performance at the Download festival.
Third on the series is Jasleen Royal on how
she began her career, her problems as an
aspiring musician and how a bad moment
can help you churn out a good song.
Idus Creed’s Uday Benegal also makes an
appearance mentioning the inevitability
of struggle, what drove him and his band
mates to creating Rock Machine at a time
when there was little or no incentive to
create a rock band. Watch out for some
fun travel anecdotes with the “fridge”,
Scooby doo and in unreserved coaches on
Indian railways! His fellow band Mahesh
Tinaikar, also speaks about how they
started off creating and marketing original
music to their audience, selling cassettes
at college concerts and the story behind
getting their very first album release.
Zubin Balaporia speaks about finding
comfort in music, choosing genres as
well as languages that one is
comfortable with and how this can
often combine to create a sound that
appeals to a wider pool of audiences.
Varun Venkit was all about making
music that makes sense to you! What a
beautiful sentiment it is. According to
him the giving a performance true to
your heart is all about creating music
that rings true to you! The documentary
also features a spirited performance
at a clothing store where they perform
to create a strictly percussive, but
nevertheless charming sound!
And finally it ends with I. P Singh
from Menwhopause concluding
that expressing your own sound has
evolved into a matter of pride.
A contribution to the scarce collection of
available information on indie in India it
still maintains one of the handful of freely
available video documentations of indie
music in India. While it does not delve into
all of the elements of the scene and is more
of an assortment of a handful of opinions
at best, it still has a bit of the raw charm
you’d expect from an indie documentary!
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
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