looking beyond popular Bollywood music unlike most musicians who have made their fame through YouTube, Maati Baani has created a special place for itself in the minds and playlists of new age music lovers. The band, created by Nirali Shah and Kartik Shah in 2012 has created a milestone for indie music in the country though their collaborations with musicians from across the country and from abroad.
They certainly knew what they wanted to do, but more importantly what they didn’t want to do was to be another band on YouTube that creates covers of popular songs. Instead, they chose to find and create new sounds which they have done in an exemplary manner. Maati Baani, which roughly translates to ‘voice of the Earth’, has given a voice to folk musicians from the rural heartlands of India, by collaborating with singers and instrumentalists who bring some unique sounds to their songs which we ordinarily never get a chance to. Some of these musicians use common objects to make music like saws, buckets and even instruments made from carved vegetables!
A mix of Indian classical music, folk and western musical sensibilities, the music created by the band stands on its own and does not fall into any specific genre. “We make sure that if we make song in a specific genre, the next song we do has to be completely different from it. So if we do a rock song now, our next song would be nothing like it. We’ll probably do an Indian folk song or a Indian classical based song,” Nirali said.
The band has also collaborated with musicians from abroad that include names like Shankar Tucker, Joyshanti from Paris and Komal Rizvi from Karachi among others, having collaborated with over 70 artists till date. The band is going to release a new video on World Music Day which will be an acoustic jam session with some 50 odd musicians where they will revisit some of their old songs. So watch out for that!