Dressed in Layers

Titled ‘Shadow and Light’, this track also opens Bose and Chari’s debut album of the same name. The 10-track album, which plays on jazz, blues, pop and Hindustani classical, has been released online by the duo and is available on iTunes and OK Listen. And no, the duo wasn’t inspired by the Joni Mitchell album of the same name.

“Essentially, we had the song unfold on its own,” says Bose, the keyboard player who, for the past decade, has been an indispensable member of Delhi-based band Advaita. “When you are in a band, there is a particular role that you play and make sure that you do not overstep the line. But what I always wanted to do was create my own music, something where I had the liberty to do it all,” says Bose, who came across Chari while auditioning singers for a musical he was composing. He could not use the voice then, but decided to work with it later.

Chari, a psychology student at Lady Shri Ram, used her training in Hindustani and Carnatic and wrote the lyrics and many melodies. “I am not trained in any Western form but I follow my own system of writing; the words first and then the melody or vice versa,” says Chari, who before this was collaborating with musicians on Soundcloud.

She hadn’t really heard Advaita before their jamming sessions at Bose’s CR Park studio. While Chari worked on writing melody lines, Bose would add the reverb and drum beats, along with the keyboard later. The fact that jazz and Hindustani classical system come really close to each other in terms of improvisation is what works for the two.

The album comprises the softly sung Blue paired with electronic loops created on the laptop, followed by Ruh-e-Noor based on Charukeshi with touches of raag Yaman and the elegant and edgy In your eyes that has echoes of Chari’s voice layered upon each other.

The duo is planning to have small concerts with this one. “There is too much happening with technology in terms of musical layers. So we can’t have huge concerts without roping in other people. For now we are trying some with a laptop, a keyboard and Pavithra’s voice,” says Bose.

sunashu.khurana@expressindia.com