World Music Day is an occasion where music from across the world is celebrated by and for music lovers. With June 21 being the designated day of celebration, Eastern Metropolitan Club hosted World Music Day Festival 2022 where 12 local bands took centre stage and performed an array of playlists. From jazz to heavy metal to folk, most of the genres were covered under one roof. The bands lined up were KiYan & Friends, Palindrome, Projekt Maya, Chronic Xorn, Murphy’s Paradox, DnA Machines, Soi, The Big Other, Folk Foundation, The Miliputs, The Urban Monkz, and Mohiner Ghoraguli Sampadito Bangla Gaan.
As Mohiner Ghoragulir Sampadito Bangla Gaan introduced themselves, they mentioned they are a collection of artistes and friends who came together to perform. They concluded the event by mesmerising the audience. Their set included some classics by the late Gautam Chatterjee, a legend of Bengali rock and founder of the progressive rock band Mohiner Ghoraguli. The fact that they made the audience stand up and cheer for them even after such a long event was proof of the love they received. “The songs we performed today and every individual here is obviously connected in some way to my father Gautam Chatterjee. Usually, I do these songs with my band Lakhichhara, but for this particular show on the occasion of World Music Day, we decided to come together to perform,” said Gourab Chatterjee, the vocalist on that day. The songs they performed were Amar Priyo Cafe, Tomay Dilam and Kotha diya bondhu. The group also had Nilanjan Mukherjee on the guitar, Mainak Choudhury on the bass, Satadal Chattopadhyay on vocals and Sourav Chatterjee on the percussions.
Representing folk music with a modern touch, Folk Foundation enthralled the audience with their strong vocals and energetic performance. They sang Krishnopokkho, Reliya bairan, which is a recent release, and Piya se naina, an Amir Khusrow composition. The band was led by Dipanwita Acharya with mesmerising vocals, accompanied by Samrat Mukherjee on the keyboard, Tirthankar Majumdar on the bass, Rohit Mukherjee on the guitar and Ritoban Das on the drums.
Chronic Xorn sure had the heavy metal fans covered. Their performance brought out some unbelievable vibes with all the heavy metal fans in the audience assembling in front of the stage to vibe to their electric act. “What we do is not only for the sake of playing metal, but all of the members of the band relate to the subject, sound, lyrics and the essence of what a metal band represents. By now, this band is a family,” said Shuvam Moitra the guitarist. The band performed their older originals on the request of their fans such as Necropolis, Death Destruction Sermon, For These Sins Who Must Die and Bleeding.
Bringing together a series of genres such as jazz, folk rock and blues, Murphy’s Paradox mesmerised the audience with their originals. This indie band performed numbers like Dreams In Technicolor Once Again, For You in Love, Two Lost Astronauts and Some Other Day. “Our songs circle around the lyrics more than the music,” said Durjoy Choudhury, with Totti.
Despite being just two people on a stage, DNA Machines generated a lot of curiosity and interest in the audience with their music and a unique instrument named “the dismantable upright electric bass”. “Whatever music we’ve been doing in the last five years have been very experimental. While drum and bass is a sub-genre of electronic music, we’ve adapted it to Indian drum and bass. There is an influence of ragas in our music,” said Debjit Mahalanobis, who played the electric upright, accompanied by Agnitray Chakrabarty. They played a continous live set, which made them unique among the other bands present.
The different acts got music lovers head-banging.
Indie-folk rock band, The Miliputs, enthralled the audience with folk songs with a touch of rock. The songs they performed were Kichudin mone mone, Milan hobe koto diney and Komolay nritya kore. “We represent traditional folk songs with an urban sound which is gladly accepted by both young and older generations. I also compose originals for the band,” said Sharoni Poddar, the vocalist. The band also had Debmalya Dey and Samiran Sadhak on guitars, Krishanu Haldar on bass and Debasish Das on the drums.
Nicolas Facino, director of Alliance Française du Bengale, dropped by.
Pictures: Koushik Chakraborty, Artistry