The bat cave sessions

Suryakant Sawhney, also the lead of Peter Cat Recording Co, has released acoustic versions of his songs played for NH7 in 2020. Pic/Karim Rahmann

It was in December 2020, during the only online edition of music festival NH7 Weekender ever that Suryakant Sawhney aka Lifafa played his set. It wasn't a regular set - the Delhi-based musician, also the front-man of the popular five-piece band Peter Cat Recording Co, who moved to Goa three years ago, played an all-acoustic, eerie but beautifully-shot set from a 300-year-old abandoned house.

It's now found a home online. His newly released video, the 41-minute long Lifafa Live at Village Carona, is a pleasant change from the usual music videos. The performer, often seen with a cigarette in one hand as he sings his songs, is seen playing the guitar, harmonium and singing. "I just don't think it's very interesting to see somebody performing mostly electronic music on screen. You need an element of something live, something theatrical and that is much more enjoyable," says Sawhney over a telephonic conversation. Since most of his music is electronic, the first thing he had decided when he was supposed to play for NH7 was, "to perform a lot of songs in an acoustic set up without any electronic or backing music." "I wasn't satisfied with the idea of sitting at home in front of a camera in a chair and just performing."

When thinking of a space, he came across an old abandoned house in Goa owned by a church. Sawhney said that the church was happy to let them shoot, as they had also been wondering what to do with it. "When I saw the house, I was relieved. There was so much personality, it looked super creepy and had bats living there," says the 35-year-old musician. "It was also in a village called Carona…," he laughs, adding, "There were 50-60 bats and it felt like we were entering a bat cave. All the walls were covered in bat s'''. It wasn't smelly, but it added a lot of character to the place. Since it was shot in the middle of the night, there weren't any traffic noises. All you can hear is crickets and bugs."

It was a two-person crew consisting of Sawhney as the director, editor and sound engineer, and Grant Davis was the director of photography. They did not start out with a set plan on how they wanted this video to turn out, and they only had prominent piece of lighting. "It was like a dance performance," says Sawhney. "There was good chemistry between Davis and I. He could sense if the song needed something more intimate and needed to come close or have some distance." Since the house was very dark and grey, they thought of bringing some life to the place by decking it with colourful flowers. Throughout the video, Sawhney is seen wearing a garland. The most challenging aspect for Sawhney was performing the songs, and also thinking from a filmmaker's point of view.

The video was released on August 15, the 75th Independence Day of India. "I have always wanted to do something on special days and I think the 75th Independence was quite cool, whether you care or not. It's always nice to put something out and give it an extra meaning," he says.