With images being screened in the background, Advaita added a twist to their performance at the India Habitat Centre. Iknoor Kaur attended the concert
The bow touched the string and moved in absolute rhythm. There was pin drop silence and the sarangi took its time to delve deeper into the minds of people. Suddenly the voice of Chayan Adhikari pulled them out of the trance and the drums took over the stage.
Forgotten wisdom, lost beneath the ground, Before the word there, there was just a sound.In just a few minutes Advaita managed to enthrall the audience with their music.
The band was formed in 2004 with eight members. Two albums gave them a worldwide popularity and a good start to their musical journey. They are known for their fusion music. Weaving Sa Re Ga Ma with Do Re Mi Fa, almost seamlessly, is their speciality and they are now progressively moving into another phase of their music.
They recently presented a new audio visual integration of their music at a concert at the Stein Auditorium at India Habitat Centre.
Advaita has always tried build their music around a theme. This time they asked their friends Sanchit and Rhuturaje to collaborate with them and create videos which played in the background with every song.
The video not only added to the visual pleasure but also brought out the theme of every song effectively.
They started with their song Dust which is a progressive rock number from their second album The Silent Sea and followed it with Tremor from the same album and their famous Ghir Ghir (raga Malhar) from the first album Grounded in Space, which they improvised a couple of times throughout the evening.
Guitarist Abhishek Mathur said that they wanted to create a different ambience and give their songs some texture through the visuals. “We have always tried to do something special. We want to do more production in the future on a larger scale. This was the first time we tried it and the response has been good,” he shared.
The visuals were animated and provided a sense of motion to the audio. This was most effective when they played Mo Funk — improvised Carnatic music — as the visuals added greater rhythm and beat.
One didn’t need to be well versed with Indian classical music or Western rock to understand the music. They also had guests accompanying them in some songs. Darshan joined them on the violin, while Kamal was on the cello. They also had a friend Varun accompanying them on percussion.
Playing the sarangi with utmost perfection was Suhail Yusuf Khan and on Indian vocals was Ujwal Nagar. Anindo Bose was on the keyboard, Aman Singh on drums, Gaurav Chintamani on bass and Mohit lal on tabla.
After they were down by nine numbers they played their second album’s title track Silent Sea which was preceded by interesting visuals. The song ended up being the highlight of the evening with its slow and soothing tunes. They concluded the show with a medium-paced song Gorakh inspired from raga Gorakh Kalyan which was a bandish.
Abhishek said that they were now thinking of heading on a five-city tour. However, that has not been finalised yet.