Mumbai, are you listening?

Jivraj Singh and Nischay Parekh

At the beginning of the year, a city-based venture was born with the sole aim of organising gigs that featured independent musicians. B:ENT organised four gigs in Mumbai featuring artistes such as The Koniac Net, Marshall and The Mischief, Faridkot, Vernon Noronha, Sapta, Calico and Pineapple Express, besides Delhi and Bengaluru.

This Sunday, they are branching out and kick-starting their monthly listening sessions, Bent On Record at their office space in Bandra. With this, they further their primary aim to support the indie music scene by introducing more people to listen to the genre. "We are a new company, so we don't want to claim that we are doing something fantastic. For us, it's all about being able to support the independent industry, especially in the music space to start with, and the already existing and growing listening culture across the country. Of late, these listening sessions have popped up frequently around Mumbai," Jai Dev Gupta, co-founder of B:ENT tells us.

Apoorv Agrawal and Jai Dev Gupta

And as they are aiming to reach out to people who haven't attended such a session yet, they haven't invited only musicians for the session. The intent is to draw in mainstream music fans as well. So, the first edition is an invite-only affair.

Promising to be a cosy event with about 40 to 60 people occupying mattresses and couches strewn across the space, it will also be a networking platform for like-minded people, after the album they have picked plays out. Speaking of which, they have gone with Parekh & Singh's 2019 album Science City, the tour for which was cancelled by the Kolkata-based duo due to personal reasons. But, besides that, Gupta adds, "The album has a lot of emotion attached to it, and it has been inspired by Kolkata's Science City, which was the duo's childhood haunt. Besides, the layering in their music is fantastic."

There will also be a Q & A session about the current vinyl culture, how to set up your collection and maintain it, besides the sale of records by The Revolver Club. There will be plenty of food and drink on offer and products will be available at discounted rates at the end of the evening.

On July 21, 5 pm onwards
At B:ENT headquarters (address to be revealed on registration).
Log on to https://bit.ly/32BGf7C

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