Catch performances by two Mumbai boy bands, who won NCPA's Band Baja Contest

Clockwise: Rajan Batra (lead vocals), Stuart D' Costa (bass) Himonshu Parekh (keyboard and production), Sahil Shah (drums) and Vaibhav Pani (lead guitar) of The Yellow Diary

New voices, latest production techniques and fresh sounds were recently discovered at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) as they concluded the Band Baja Contest, a platform encouraging young aspiring contemporary bands to come forward and showcase their talent. In its fourth year now, the contest received 30 entries from across India. The winning bands, Euphony and The Yellow Diary were both from Mumbai, and sounded static when we connected with them. Though their genres and styles are quite different from each other, both bands started performing professionally last year.

(Left to right) Euphony members Joshua Rajan (bass), Aditya Kale (backing vocals), Sanish Nair (lead vocals ), Rupesh Shirsat (guitarist), Ravikiran Nannaware (flute), Bhavesh Sharma (beatbox)

"We met at a youth festival organised by the University of Mumbai. It was a group-singing contest, we sang together and won a gold. This encouraged us to start a band together. That's how Euphony came into being," shares Sanish Nair, the band's lead vocalist. "The contest required us to use one Folk instrument; we used the flute. Also, instead of using regular percussion instruments, we use beat boxing, creating sounds and harmonies from the mouth. This makes our sound unique," he adds. The band whose average age lies between 20 and 22 years, featuring mainly students, is based in Central Mumbai and performs Hindi and English songs, in Folk, Funk, Dubstep, Rock and Freestyle genres.

The Yellow Diary, on the other hand, features full-time musicians who have composed and released songs in Hindi, Punjabi and Marwari and don't feel that they are restricted by genre and language. "Our strength is our production.
One of our band members Himonshu Parekh, who is our keyboardist, is also our producer. Our sound makes us unique. We have received positive feedback about our work from big names in the industry like Vishal Dadlani and Warren Mendonsa," adds lead guitarist Vaibhav Pani.

According to Dr Suvarnalata Rao, Head of Programming (Indian Music), NCPA, "the Band Baja Contest was created with an intention to encourage young talent and their creativity in the alternate/contemporary genre. The Yellow Diary stood out owing to their unique, fresh and entertaining music which was an ode to the various experiences one goes through in this mysterious and unpredictable roller coaster called life, while Euphony led throughout the competition with their beat boxing and vocal unanimity. The winning bands will perform at the NCPA Experimental Theatre along with a also a chance to get a video recording of their performance (a single edited track of their choice).

A complimentary ticket will be given to each member of the winning bands for the One World Many Musics Festival along with the opportunity to meet and jam with performing artists including Shantanu Moitra, Ani Choying, Kaushiki Chakrabarty, Purbayan (sitarist) and Ashwin Srinivasan (flute).