Category Archives: Listen

the Buddies – Self Titled LP

By Suman Sinha | Published: September 19, 2011
theBuddies

‘the Buddies’ are an amalgam of two bands, Welcome to Ashley from Chicago and Pale Blue Dot out of Nashville. On AI we have covered Welcome to Ashley before and so when this opportunity came I was definitely very eager. I wasn’t disappointed! The band is made up of Coley Kennedy (Voice), Kim Collins (Drums, Vocals, Accordion), Justin Colins (Guitar, Vocals, Piano) Scott Collins (Guitar, Vocals) and Jeremy “Mouse” Barrett (Bass Guitar) and they describe their sound thus, a searing combination of garage-folk, post punk, and Celtic rock – “boozy, shambling, sweetly grungy hoist-alongs.” The LP grows on you after a few listens. Though there are a few ‘filler’ tracks, the ones that are good really stand out. Musically they

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Diablo Swing Orchestra – The Butcher’s Ballroom

By Suman Sinha | Published: August 27, 2011
Diablo Swing Orchestra - The Butcher's Ballroom

If you think you’ve heard it all, you’re about to realise that you are (sadly) mistaken! Unless of course you have heard the Diablo Swing Orchestra! Then you would know what I am talking about. Before I describe their music, bear with me while I copy-paste the long history behind the band – 500 years of it, to be precise! The Diablo Swing Orchestra dates back to 1501 in Sweden, where history tells the tale of an orchestra that played like no other. With music so seductive and divine that the ensemble overwhelmed audiences all over the country, and people from all social classes took them to their hearts. Their performances rapidly earned a reputation of being feral and vigorous

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Agni – Wind Dance with Fire

By Suman Sinha | Published: August 23, 2011
Agni-WindDanceWithFire

Agni was one of the bands of the first wave of Indian Rock, back in the mid-90s, when they released their debut album Wind Dance with Fire in 1995. The album was well-received despite the somewhat poorly-produced videos, a testament to the inherent musical quality of their compositions. Their video for Darkening Light, a brilliant Classic Rock track, received a fair amount of airplay on MTV Asia and the band looked set to go places. But as with most bands of that first wave prior to the phenomenon called Internet, their popularity did not translate to commercial viability because of relatively poor album sales and absence of other avenues of revenue generation, such as concerts and merchandise, and after another

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D For Brother

By Suman Sinha | Published: July 2, 2011
DForBrother

D For Brother were Amyt Datta and Monojit Datta, brothers, musicians, maestros! Amyt was the guitarist; Monojit (he was more popularly known by his nickname, Kochoo) was the full-time drummer/percussionist and part-time multi-instrumentalist! Taking a break from playing in all kinds of rock bands in and around Calcutta/Kolkata, they released an eponymous album of World Music in 1992, did a few concerts (even one in Europe if I remember correctly) and then moved on to other forms of experimentation in music. Last I knew, Monojit was going strong leading what is probably the only Latin band in India and Amyt plays guitar in a Rock band, Skinny Alley as well as in an ‘impossible-to-categorize quartet’ PINKNOISE. I had bought their

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Rock Roundup II – The Roots Edition

By Suman Sinha | Published: June 29, 2011
RockRoundupII

If you have been following AI, you may have come across the ‘Rock Roundup I’ post (here). Then you will probably know that this roundup thinggie happens when I haven’t been posting for a while, although I have been searching the web and listening to new music all the while and then suddenly one day I have too many bands to feature and I combine all of them and do a single post! Welcome to Rock Roundup II! (To be fair, this time I was also experiencing a lot of performance issues on the website and it took me the better part of the month to completely redo the site from scratch and make it faster!) I am calling this

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