27 April,2014 09:54 AM IST | | Deepali Dhingra
In their 25th year, Indian Ocean is back with a new album — one that sees them collaborating with a different artiste for
each song
Indian Ocean has never played by the rules. And that is one of the many reasons the Indo-rock fusion band is loved by listeners everywhere. And now, in their 25th year of existence, they have gone ahead and done something which is a unique experience for them as well. The band is all set to release its seventh album Tandanu in May. So what's new about that, you ask? Well, for starters, the album consists of seven songs, each one, a collaboration with another artiste. Musicians like Shankar Mahadevan, Karsh Kale, Shubha Mudgal, Pandit Vishwamohan Bhatt, Vishal Dadlani, Selva Ganesh and Kumaresh Rajagopalan have co-composed a song each, along with Indian Ocean.
Indian Ocean is in their 25th year of existence. Pic courtesy/Ashima Yadava
"It was an idea that we had been toying with for some time," says drummer and vocalist Amit Kilam, who tells us that all the collaborators were gracious enough to agree on the very first call. "The plan was to make a pure collaboration and so, we invited them to Delhi to stay with us for some days and co-compose the tracks with us," he informs. The band has created seven small episodes recording their experiences of composing the tracks, the first of which has already aired on Pepsi MTV Indies.
The band's last album, 16/330 Khajoor Road, featured vocals by the late Asheem Chakravarti and guitar-playing by Susmit Sen. The new album comes after the demise of Chakravarti, Sen leaving the band and the inclusion of musicians Nikhil Rao, Himanshu Joshi and Tuheen Chakravorty. "The sound has changed a bit and it should change, because we didn't want clones," says bass guitarist Rahul Ram, who believes that their fans will accept the band's
evolved sound.
