11 August,2011 09:56 AM IST | | Anshu Aawasthi
Touring around the globe, coming out with a new album, adding new members to the group, the band Indian ocean is abuzz with activity
16/330 Khajoor Road, an impending world tour and with Tuhin Chakraborty and Himanshu Joshi replacing the beloved member of the group Asheem Chakravarty at tabla and vocals, the Kandisa-fame band is back to the scene. And how.
At their own pace
The band resurfaced with theiru00a0 latest album 16/330 Khajoor Road featuring seven songs last year after working on it for more than four years. The band, known for their Indo-rock fusion spiced with jazz, are distributing their latest album on the internet for free. "This is a tribute to Asheem. The album will incorporate all of his songs which haven't been released so far," says Rahul Ram, a band member.
Rahul gives the math behind the band's decision of not going with any record label to release their last album. "There areu00a0 copyright issues, digital rights hassles and contract bindings. We were getting only a 20 percent royalty for every album sold. So lets say if the album is priced at Rs 200, it would mean giving 40 percent or more to the record label, leaving us with a meagre 20 percent of the remaining Rs 120. This would have been an unfair deal."
Rahul couldn't be more right. Their album 16/330 Khajoor Road is seeing around 50,000 to 70,000 downloads per month and the members are hopeful of a good response when they come out with its CD in October. "There is still a large number of population who gets the thrill of holding their favourite CD inu00a0 hand inspite of free downloads being available online," Rahul added.
Although the music scene is evolving rapidly in our country with newer bands coming up, is there awareness among the Bollywood addicted masses regarding the niche genres of music? "People can recognise good music from bad. Any beautiful composition, be it fusion or sufi will sell if it is good," says Sushmit Sen who plays the guitar.
The band, which was lying dormant for the past few months, has sprung back to action and is ready to tour. They were in the Capital recently, celebrating the premier anniversary of a popular nightclub. The band will now go to Nairobi, Kenya to perform two shows after which the tour of US and UK is impending. Are you ready to join them?
