Left to right: Amit, Rahul, Nikhil, Himanshu and Tuheen

“We are not in a race,” says guitarist Nikhil Rao of the five-member outfit that has been rocking the music industry for 33 years. However, the 10-year gap after their last album wasn’t intentional, they say, since COVID had come in the way. “Our next, for sure, will not take another 10 years,” he adds.

Through Tu Hai, the band takes a spiritual and reflective route as it addresses topics from what’s happening to our environment and its species to talking about celebrating nature, God, renewal and rebirth. “Every song has had its own journey and emerges naturally,” says Nikhil.

From an era where people listened to an album in their entirety, till today, a lot has changed in 10 years. “We moved to streaming, people prefer to listen to playlists, artistes prefer to release singles. That’s not the world we grew up in, and so we are not in a rush to catch up with trends,” Nikhil adds.

The band is open to exploring new tech in the field, even the metaverse. “The music industry is changing. Nobody knows what’s next. We are still figuring out how people would want to consume music in the future. If we have something to offer in the metaverse space, we will soon,” says Nikhil.

Kasmin Fernandes (MID-DAY; July 17, 2016)

M Cream, which will hit Indian theatres after doing the rounds of various film festivals, has an indie slant in more ways than one. Srijan Mahajan and Arsh Sharma of eclectic duo FuzzCulture have co-composed the music for M Cream with fellow indie musician Nikhil Malik. It has a rock song (Woh Parinda) and two English tracks (the rock- jazz Man With A Million Drugs and the guitar-heavy Wayfaring Stranger). “The process of creating the music for M Cream was great and honestly really free. We had some amazing contributions from artists such as Shubha Mudgal, IP Singh, Susmit Bose, Suhail Yusuf Khan and Shantanu Pandit,” says Arsh, who is otherwise a regular performer at music festivals as part of Fuzzculture. The six-track album is one of the many Bollywood soundtracks to feature vocalists and musicians from the indie music space of the subcontinent that loosely includes the rock, folk, electronica and acoustic genres.

A familiar face in the Indian EDM scenario, Delhi-based Nucleya, aka Udayan Sagar, made his Bollywood debut with party song Let’s Nacho from Kapoor & Sons, which was out earlier this year. Composed by Nucleya, the song had Kumaar and Christopher Pradeep as lyricists, and featured Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra and Fawad Afzal Khan kicking up a storm in a club. It’s a restyling of Nucleya’s original hit Tamil Fever (with Dayal) — that had South Indian elements and dhol — with the addition of rapper Badshah’s verse. “They heard the song and thought it would fit in nicely in a film if reworked,” he says.

Khel Khel Main, arguably the best song of Amitabh Bachchan-Farhan Akhtar-starrer Wazir, came from indie band Advaita and had the voice of The Big B himself. Assamese rocker Joi Barua recreated his original Dusokute for Kalki Koechlin-starrer Margarita With A Straw. Metal band Goddess Gagged frontman Siddharth Basrur has sung Neend Na Mujhko Aaye (Shaandaar) and Meri Zid (Bangistan).

Desi rock ’n’ roll band Faridkot is behind the compositions for last year’s Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene. The soundtrack of the critically acclaimed Masaan was helmed by rock pioneers Indian Ocean, which was one of the first rock bands in the country to delve into film territory with Black Friday back in 2007. The director was norm challenger Anurag Kashyap, of course. Interestingly, Rahul Ram of Indian Ocean considers ‘non- Bollywood, non-traditional’ a better term than ‘indie’ for the music they make.

A younger set of well-travelled directors exposed to traditionally non-Bollywood sounds, a growing base of teens who vouch for indie acts like Raghu Dixit Project and Advaita and music composers willing to experiment with unusual voices has given rise to this trend. With soundtracks featuring multiple composers, the territory is wide open for newer sounds. They are bringing jazz, electronica, folk and world music into the realm, genres that the average filmgoer might not be exposed to. The non-Bollywood musicians bring with them a newer sensibility, instruments you wouldn’t otherwise hear in a Bollywood gaana — like the sax heard prominently in Shamitabh — and vocals styles that make you sit up and listen. “This bodes well for Bollywood music. It’s no longer filmi per se,” says Barua, who is currently composing the entire soundtrack for a film.

While some artistes have a go at film music when the situation arises, others like Pentagram frontman Vishal Dadlani of Kholgade, Saba Azad (one half of the duo Madboy Mink), Nikhil D’Souza, Shefali Alvares and composer Mikey McCleary have become an intrinsic part of the mainstream filmi music scene.

Adds Barua, “Bollywood changed life for me. From being known to a niche segment of rock fans in some parts of the country, my music became something the rickshaw guy was playing on his stereo, something I wouldn’t have imagined.” It happens only in indie-ah.