These musicians are turning earth into heaven!

This is a long due review, views; call it whatever! Swarathma, an Indian contemporary folk fusion band as they call themselves, have, are and will be carrying with themselves a huge fan following. Unfortunately, I’ve seen them perform live only once but hear them virtually everyday!

The band members are as follows:

• Vasu Dixit - Vocals, acoustic guitar
• Jishnu Dasgupta - Bass, backing vocals
• Varun - Guitars, backing vocals
• Montry Manuel – Drums
• Pavan Kumar – Percussions
• Sanjeev Nayak – Violins

As mere listeners when we watch a show, we generally concentrate on that one person who is the pick of the day or the one who is at his/her best on a given day, but Swarathma is one group loaded with talent in each of the members. The team is packed with some astounding energy whether it’s the start of the show or the fag end!

First impression is the best they say, and Swarathma has vowed their performance by this. Their presentation skills in terms of clothing, marketing, music which is of utmost importance is utterly professional. I have always noticed this in most bands: each of them standing in their fixed positions, concentrating on their instruments alone. Only the lead singer is all over the stage filling in some life. This was the case in the recent rock show I was witness to that too a leading band in India.

However, Swarathma impressed me on this note too! Vasu and Jishnu were on fire, involving all the musicians, the listeners and virtually the bartender too! To top it all, Montry the drummer on a different league altogether! He was so involved, it was all emanating on his face! Thorough enjoyment I must say! Personally, my favourite was Sanjeev on the violins! Bald men always thrill me ;) But then his music spoke for himself. He and Varun looked composed and let their music speak.

Coming to their songs, Yeshu Allah aur Krishna, Jaana Kahaan hai mujhe, Ee Bhoomi, Topiwalleh, Tibet and Pyaasi are my top favourites. Their lyrics are simple, refreshing and mirror their thoughts. The use of classical instruments like the Khanjiri sure blends its way with the other western instruments and is quite pleasing to the ear.

I’ve said all good things till now. Time for some suggestions! When it comes to another genre, say classical music; there are tons of compositions. So a musician has a choice of presenting different songs every concert. However, bands like these have to continually innovate, create new songs, not just for an album but for their performance galore! Right now, Topiwalleh and Tibet are the latest additions, but 3 or 4 concerts later, though their present numbers are crowd pullers, more will be expected of them. This is purely my view and many may beg to differ. Nevertheless, considering their talent, I am pretty sure they are capable of belting out new compositions every month :)

Lastly, I hope the team sticks together as many bands these days, once making it big generally tend to disintegrate and the initial spark is totally lost. So, a big hope that they hold on strong at least for their fans! Oh yes! Another thing! A small search on each of the members reveal that one is an XLRI pass out, one is as young as 21 years of age and so on. It really feels nice that even after big accomplishments, these guys are getting to pursue their passion. Some sincerity towards music for sure!

In their recent update I read they felt on top of the world to be sharing the stage with India’s top rock bands; the day is not far off when other up and coming bands will feel the same with Swarathma themselves! You rock guys!