Midival Punditz, unplugged

Q The album Light has artistes from across genres making guest appearances How do these new elements influence the sound of Midival Punditz Is this an attempt to offer more than just your known soundA This album has a great ensemble of collaborators who have added a new dimension to our music When we are writing a new track roughly half way through the writing process we know who we would like to collaborate with to complete the story of that track Now with this record we have had a lot of Indian Folk music influences such as Malini Awasthi from UP Kutle Khan from Rajasthan and Baiju Dharmajan from Kerala Its not a conscious attempt to offer more than our known sound but its a natural progression of our musicGaurav Raina and Tapan Raj the duo behind Midival PunditzQ Whats the story behind the album title Light Does this have anything to do with your performanceoriented gigs you have planned across IndiaA Yes absolutely Our music is always like a narration of our experiences our travels and our lives Our lives and experiences always inspire us During that time we were playing at a lot of music festivals and were inspired by the sheer theatrics of the festivals That led us to conceptualise the album as a show a fullfledged show mdash where the tracks were dramatic enough to create a lot of dynamics within a live performance We realised that today the lighting mdash where its used on stage for visuals or in the music mdash is important Even in music darkness and light relate to moods For us we would always visualise the level of light in that song or that part of that entire show Light was very important to the conceptualisation of this album The album goes through degrees of brightness or darkness and that is the reason why we called it Light It encapsulated the essence of the album We have worked with a talented Delhibased duo Santana Issar and Naasha Mehta who have created visuals for each track of the album and these will be displayed on a screen behind the band during our performances These visuals and also the lighting production are in sync with the music We believe it creates a more impacted experience for our audienceLight by Midival Punditz Times Music Album releases on April 28Q How long have you guys been working on this albumA Wed been working on Light for almost a yearandahalf We wanted a single string of thought to tiein the album So to maintain that continuity of treatment and thought the tracks were all written one after the other It was the natural way togo about it as this particular album is a performancebased concept record The album is like a full Midival Punditz show performed liveQ Which are your favourite tracks in the album and whyA This changes every few weeks For some time we individually like a track and think its a favourite and then it changes to another trackQ Do you have roles and responsibilities defined within the act or does it change with situation and timeA We write our music individually in our studios and then pass it on to each other to take the track forward or sometimes we start working on a track together if we are in the same studio at a time Our roles and responsibilities interchange within the band often depending on the situation However the role of engineering and recording the album is done primarily by Gaurav RainaQ Midival Punditz has been around for a while now Do you see a change in tastes among Indian Electronic music fansA Now there is more acceptance of our style of music and even more for Independent music This in turn is encouraging more young aspiring musicians to see music as a viable career option This wasnt the case when we startedQ For the last few years we have been seeing an influx of foreign DJs performing in India Do you see India as the next hotspot for Electronica or EDMA We see India as a hotspot for entertainment in general This means international comedy acts dance acts live bands DJs in every genre and not just Electronica or EDM The Electronica scene in India is growing rapidly and thats got a lot to do with the emergence of more festivals and venues This wasnt the case when we started and its exciting to see the scene push forwardOn Today 10 pm onwardsAt blueFROG Mathuradas Mills Compound Lower ParelCall 61586158