Melodic grooves from Malabar

Chennai based instrumental band, Malbar, comprising, Govind Menon and Varun Sunil, will play medleys of popular Bollywood numbers and world music originals tomorrow

Chennai may not be anywhere on the Malabar coast, but these boys still named their band Malabar. Reason? They might be based in Chennai, but their roots lie in Kerala. Malabar is made up of 22-year-old Govind Menon on the violin and 23-year-old Varun Sunil, on percussions. The band is a year old.

Varun who is a first-generation musician never saw himself taking up music professionally. "I never thought I would take up music as a career. I completed my BBA in Cochin, but my mind was totally into music." After college he joined a studio in Chennai and completed a course in sound engineering, worked as sound engineer and also started performing.

The turning point came when he met Stephen Devassy, -- pianist for celebrated musician AR Rahman. By then Govind was already working for Devassy and instantly hit it off with Varun. The two played together informally for a year before forming a band last year.u00a0

Limelight came early to the duo. "The first time I played with him was when he casually asked me if could play for him in a TV reality show. We had a great time." They have performed live extensively on stage and TV and won major talent contests playing together.

Their forte is melody backed by strong groovy beats. While Govind generally plays on the electric violin, he is also the band's programmer and composer. Varun plays a variety of percussion instruments including the thumba, triple congas, djembe, darbuka, chenda, bongos etc. Apart from their original compositions, the duo also play popular songs from films. They have cut their teeth in the business providing music for musical reality shows where it is often impossible to forecast what song will need to be played.

What do they have in store for Pune tomorrow? "We'll be bringing different sounds from different parts of the world. Govind has already programmed some world music, fusion, a mix of east and west and Carnatic too. We programme everything and compose tracks," smiles Varun. There will be some Hindi film music too. "We have a Rahman medley, a Kishore Kumar medley and some other numbers and perhaps even some Hip Hop," he adds.

Inspired by Shivamani and Jazz and Blues artist Billy Cobham Varun is optimistic about performing in Pune. "Our music is different from the rest. Hope the Pune crowd enjoys it," he signs off

At: Curve, ABC Farms, Koregaon Park. On September 1. 8:30 pm onwards Call: 64000410