THE BAND WHICH TOOK SIKKIM TO GREAT INDIAN ROCK IS READY WITH A NEW ALBUM
TSHERING EDEN
They complete a decade in the rock scene this year, and are, in a way, “Starting from Scratch” again. Still Waters made headlines in 2002 by becoming the first band from Sikkim to play in the Great Indian Rock festival. They have headlined many gigs since, and after a couple of years off the scene, exploded back on the stage last year, storming into the GIR again and flaunting a new line-up built around the rock-sync of Ananth Pradhan, the lead vocalist, and Sonam Lachungpa of the skilful fingers on lead guitar. The band is now all set to release their second album – “Starting from Scratch” - which belts out their foray into Nepali Rock.
With 6 songs in Nepali and 2 in English, “Starting from Scratch” is an essentially Nepali album. Incidentally, the band also performed one of their Nepali songs, ‘Pharki Na Au’, at the GIR festival last year, which is a first on the fest.
On the transition from English to Nepali, Ananth, while speaking to NOW! explained that post their GIR feat [of 2002], and their debut album, they got into the mainstream rock scene playing mostly in English, but were now looking at catering to their closer, Nepali-speaking audience in Sikkim, Darjeeling, and other parts of the country and in Nepal.
The album has been four years in the making, with Ananth doing most of the song writing and Sonam composing the music.
“Given the fact, that most of the music has been recorded at Sonam’s home studio, we are pretty happy with the quality of the sound,” shares Ananth.
The switch [from English to Nepali], he admits, felt a little odd in the beginning, but got better as they progressed. Over the past 4 years, they have written out 21 Nepali rock anthems, of which 6 have found their way into the new album.
“We decided to keep two English songs in the album not as fillers but because we wanted to retain the earlier feel and sound of the band that people are used to,” he adds, explaining the reason behind two English songs that also feature in the album.
Ananth, who is also an RJ at Nine FM, further informed that at present, two songs from the album, “Sodha” and “Priyasi” [which happens to be the first Nepali song he wrote] are being aired on the radio and the response has been pretty good so far.
“The language we have used in the songs is closer to the Nepali that we speak every day,” he details.
Also in the pipeline is a video on one of the songs which the band has still to decide upon. As far as marketing and distribution goes, the band is taking care of it on their own and will be distributing the album through music vendors soon. The official release is scheduled for 03 April, Sunday.
“Since, the band has been around for quite some time, musically, expectations are high and we should hopefully do better this time. The sound of our previous album was quite raw but the new album will have a better sound to it for sure,” he adds.
Now that the Still Waters are rippling again, the coming week will bear out how they crest with their latest experiment of rocking in Nepali...
Still Water belongs to an era when there were loads of bands from Darjeeling and Sikkim that came and went. Only difference is that they are still rocking together. Like all rock bands they are also going through a transition but good thing to know is that they are maturing and changing for the good, which is suggested by their choice of adapting to Nepali rock. Of course, many people may find it uncool but for a true music lover it will be a great treat for there are hardly any genuine Nepali Rock Bands these days. Also it's quite appreciative that they have chosen to get inspired from their own "Roots". I have been hearing other regional Rock Bands like Bengali Rock Bands for quite some time and they have taken the music to whole different level. I would definitely love to see Nepali Rock reach to that level and all we need is little bit of appreciation for own culture.
ReplyDeleteStill Water belongs to an era when there were loads of bands from Darjeeling and Sikkim that came and went. Only difference is that they are still rocking together. Like all rock bands they are also going through a transition but good thing to know is that they are maturing and changing for the good, which is suggested by their choice of adapting to Nepali rock. Of course, many people may find it uncool but for a true music lover it will be a great treat for there are hardly any genuine Nepali Rock Bands these days. Also it's quite appreciative that they have chosen to get inspired from their own "Roots". I have been hearing other regional Rock Bands like Bengali Rock Bands for quite some time and they have taken the music to whole different level. I would definitely love to see Nepali Rock reach to that level and all we need is little bit of appreciation for own culture.
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