Brahma: Music of the soil
Folk music is here to stay. This has become increasingly evident in Kolkata with the number of folk based bands coming up, as well as the swelling crowd of lovers of this genre. After all, the sound of the soil has its own way of pulling at the heartstrings.
But newly formed band Brahma, say fans, is a cut above the rest. There is a lot of authenticity in it and the Western music strains merely go to emphasise their music as being a part of the World music tradition. This six-member band presented their first show on Augsut 23, 2007 and was overwhelmed by the response.
Sanjay Bhattacharya, the frontman, lead guitarist and the music composer-arranger had always wanted to make music based on the age-old Baul tradition. The reason stems from his upbringing. As a child, he visited Baul concerts and kirtans with his mother, which was very popular in the area he grew up. Guitar attracted him and once he had mastered it, specifically the jazz and blues, along with some friends he founded pop Bangla band Cactus in '93. Sanjay, however, bowed out of the band because he felt, "Cactus did not want to grow musically and I felt I was stagnating."
The concept of Brahma crystallised at the same time Sanjay married vocalist Malabika in 2002. Malabika is the only vocalist in the band, as she is trained in Indian classical music. She took to Western music while in college and then surprisingly and smoothly, changed to folk when Sanjay asked her to try out the genre. The two then took off on an educational tour, scouring the Bengal countryside and learning from Indian folk traditions. Thinking of a name for the band was easy. Malabika's maiden name was put to use.
