It all adds up to music

Sky Level plays at a gig. Pic/Sankirang L.Khongwir

It's hard enough sometimes to pin music down to a specific genre. But things get doubly tricky when we deal with niche sub-genres, like math rock. It's a sound that originated in the US in the 1980s as an offshoot of punk and progressive rock, where a regular 4/4 time signature (a term that denotes how many beats are contained per musical bar) was replaced by more complex and asymmetrical ones, layered over dissonant chord structures. This music was never meant for the mainstream. It doesn't have the easily approachable quality of, say, commercial pop or straight-up alt-rock. But over the years, it did find takers across the world, spreading from the US to Europe and all the way to Japan.

And it's this Japanese influence that first caught the fancy of four youngsters from Shillong, who formed what is the northeastern city's only math rock outfit, Sky Level. Their journey didn't start in that direction, however. When drummer Denzil Swer founded the act in 2014, the line-up was completely different and the members focused squarely on indie rock. "But things weren't working out for us, and so we disbanded after a short while. Then, in 2015, I was jamming with a good friend of mine, [guitarist] Sonny Taba. We realised that both of us had similar influences, such as [Japanese math rockers] Toe, and decided to get a new line-up and shift our focus, and that's how we got guitarist Meban Lyngdoh and bassist Pynshai Kharshandi on board," Swer informs.

(From left) Denzil Swer, Meban Lyngdoh, Pynshai Kharshandi and Sonny Taba of Sky Level

Their intention, he adds, had been to focus on originals right from the start. So it happened that in 2016, they started conceptualising Time, an album they finally recorded earlier this year. Now, the boys are gearing up for an India tour to promote it, with a gig slated at a SoBo venue a week from now.

Back home in Shillong, however, things look bleak for the indie scene, Swer says, with evident regret dripping from his voice. It's not that there is a dearth of talented musicians (almost every household in Shillong, in fact, has a guitar and at least one member who is proficient in the instrument). "But families are usually against the idea of youngsters taking up music full-time. The venues are also corrupt, and exploit musicians by expecting them to play for free. So, I don't know what to say really, because nothing seems to be happening here [on the indie front]," Swer tells us.

Which is why, he adds, playing a gig at High Spirits in Pune a week ago was such a revelatory experience. "The crowd was really awesome, and we are really excited about playing in Mumbai, since this will be our debut gig there outside of playing at a festival [Mood Indigo in 2016, where they placed second in the live music contest]," he says. The band's set list for the concert will consist wholly of songs from the new album, Swer continues, which means that this will be a new experience even for the audience. For, even though there is a fair number of post-punk and prog-rock outfits doing the rounds of the city, math rock remains such a niche sub-genre that you can literally count the number of such bands across the country on your fingers.

On: September 26, 8.30 pm
At: The Quarter, Royal Opera House, Girgaum.
Log on to: insider.in
Entry: Rs 799