Rolling Stone India 2017-01 PDF

BLAKC / KATATONIA / PLAGUE THROAT
> ISSUE 00107 > JANUARY 2017

> RS 100 > rollingstoneindia.com
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Best
Albums
of 2016
Beyoncé
David Bowie
Frank Ocean
Chance the Rapper
The Best
Indian
Rolling Releases
Stones Donn Bhat
Sanjay Divecha
BACK Godless
Skyharbor
TO THE
& many more
BLUES Sting’s
Rock & Roll
Salvation
RS00107
“ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS”
Back
to the
Blues
After an 11-year wait, the
Rolling Stones recorded a
new album in three days.
Inside their roots revival
and bright future
BY BR I A N HI AT T
NORTHFOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
TRAILBLAZER
Mick Jagger onstage
during the Voodoo Lounge
Tour in Washington,
D.C., 1994
Ja n u a r y 2 017 rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e |3
CONTENTS
Rolling Stone | January 2017
FEATURES
Sting’s Rock & Roll Salvation
He’s got a charmed life and a loud, hard-hitting new album.
So why can’t he stop thinking about dying?
By Stephen Roderick ............44
ROCK & ROLL

Floating Points Tove Lo’s High Life
The English electronic The Swedish singer has
musician on how DJing become one of pop’s most
is more about art than interesting stars by singing
technique, his songwriting honestly about sex, drugs and
process and more ....... 22 heartache...... 15
Katatonia in India Q&A: DJ Khaled

Vocalist Jonas Renkse The hitmaking producer on
talks about comfort zones, becoming a motivational icon,
returning to India, and Snapchatting the birth of his
celebrating 25 years together son and the importance of
as a band....... 27 self-care...... 26
DEPARTMENTS
MUSIC REVIEWS David Guetta embarks on an
Country queen Miranda India tour, and more ......53
Lambert flirts and drinks and
digs deep on a powerful double PLAYLIST
LP, Metallica returns to its clas- Childish Gambino’s splays
sic sound and a brutality perfect helium-soul love all over a
Donn Bhat’s latest for our times and more ....49 rubbery P-Funk groove on
release ‘Connected’ is “Redbone,” The Flaming Lips’
part of our list of 10 Best GIG CALENDAR darkly hulking “How??”,
Indian Albums 2016
The chilled-out festival Nariyal Nicki Minaj’s “Black Barbies”
Paani returns for a second and more.........54
ON THE COVER: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards edition, French producer
photographed in Santiago, Chile, on February 3rd,
2016, by Carlos Muller.
rollingstoneindia.com ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
SULAFEST 2017
SRIJAN MAHAJAN (DONN BHAT); COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (INDIAN OCEAN)
SHOW ON THEIndian
ROAD The 10th edition of SulaFest is
Ocean
Prateek will
Kuhad around the corner—and this time
perform at with one additional day of love,
SulaFest music, food, drinks and more.
2017 With three stages and over 120
artists set to perform including
desi hip-hop king Nucleya, fusion
rock act Indian Ocean and indie-
pop artist Your Chin, this year’s
festival is set to be the biggest that
Sula has to offer. The wine-and
music extravaganza will be held at
the Sula Vineyards in Nashik from
February 3rd-5th, 2017.
4 | R ol l i n g S t o n e | rollingstoneindia.com Ja n u a r y 2 017
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ROLLING STONE INDIA

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SPECIAL The New Life of SAM SMITH ERIC CLAPTON
FEATURE
TAYLOR Lonely Boy Getting
Indian SWIFT
Surfing Breaks Ready To
Stories Through Call It
FLYING
LOTUS
Quits
THE COLLEGE FESTS
GENRE-
HOPPER Still BERLIN CALLING
Rocking Why Indian
SHAA’IR The Electronica
AND Campus Artists Are
FUNC Rooting For
India’s Germany
defining
electro dance
rock band on
being sexy, hated
and famous
ALBUMS
TO WATCH
NIKHIL OUT FOR
D’SOUZA Blackstratblues
Back from Bhayanak Maut
Nashville Inner Sanctum
Queen
Last Remaining Light
Scribe
RODRIGO Y and more
GABRIELA
Instrumental 1951 — 2014
Robin Williams
Rock ROBERT
Adele
PLANT
Inside the Zeppelin
U2
singer’s wild,
ambitious solo LP
THE TRIUMPHANT LIFE AND PAINFUL

FINAL DAYS OF A COMEDIC GENIUS
A Private Life TAKE ON FREDDIE MERCURY’S
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THE WORLD
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TRAGIC RHAPSODY
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RAJA KUMARI / BLOODYWOOD / ALICIA KEYS

> ISSUE 00106 > DECEMBER 2016
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The Hot List 2016 > ISSUE 00107 > JANUARY 2017 The
NUCLEYA
> RS 100 > rollingstoneindia.com Black
Parvaaz
Divine
Keys
Prateek Kuhad The Dark Days
Behind Their
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Mallika Dua
Arunabh Kumar Best Album Yet
Tillotama Shome
and more
PRIMAVERA
SOUND
BRUNO Arcade Fire, NIN,
MARS The National,
Swag on the outside. HAIM and more
Anxiety within
HOW INDIAN
THE ROCKERS
BEATLES’ MULTITASK
ACID TEST
Jack
How LSD triggered
their masterpiece
‘Revolver’ THE
LAST
White
THE NEW
NORAH
Singer-songwriter
BEE GEE
returns with a Barry Gibb Looks
‘sneak attack’ LP Back in Heartbreak
The Strange World
of a Rock & Roll
Willy Wonka
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NICKI MINAJ | STEVEN WILSON | MOTHERJANE MS MR BRIAN ENO ARIANA GRANDE KIRAN GANDHI > ISSUE 0076 > JUNE 2014
Best
> ISSUE 0084 > FEBRUARY 2015
SUBSCRIBER’S COPY
Albums
of 2016
Beyoncé
David Bowie
Frank Ocean LINKIN PARK
Return to
Chance the Rapper

Heavy
Roots On
New Album
THE BLACK KEYS
CANNIBAL CORPSE
Turn to a
MASTODON Darker
SIKTH Shade of
DYING FETUS
THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER Blues
INTERVALS ★★★★1/2
Best
THE ALGORITHM
Stevie DEMONIC
BHAYANAK MAUT
The
INNER SANCTUM
NERVECELL
DHWESHA
Indian
ESCHER’S KNOT
RESURRECTION
Nicks
A Rock Goddess Rolling Releases
HOW THE MUMBAI EXTREME METALLERS WENT FROM A 16-YEAR-OLD’S
DREAM TO ONE OF INDIA’S MOST POPULAR BANDS
Stones
Looks Back
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Godless
march
MAY
2014
Skyhabor
2015
THE
EXCLUSIVE STRYPES
TO THE
APPUPEN THE IRISH
& many more
UNVEILS TEENS ON A
NEW
GRAPHIC RETRO-
NOVEL ROCK
MISSION
ROLLING STONE
ROLLING STONE
INDIAN
OCEAN
BLUES
INSIDE THE
DELHI BAND’S
BRAND
|
Sting’s
NEW ALBUM
WOMEN OF INDIAN ROCK
Inside
|
GAME OF THRONES
WOMEN GAME of
OF INDIAN
ROCK Rock & Roll THRONES
The Man Who
Salvation
Monica Dogra
Tipriti Kharbangar Would Be King
Anushka Manchanda
Vasudha Sharma Kit Harington
PLUS The Genius
MADONNA
Behind
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KAUR R.R. Martin
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WHO'S THE SUPERSONICS B.B.
Lil
DONE FULL CALLING IT QUITS AGAIN KING THE
SPECIAL REPORT
FOCUS
1925-2015
PLAYLIST
Duran Wayne’s Pete Townshend’s
Ambivalent
IN THE MIX
War ISSUE
DUTCH INDIAN-AMERICAN
Farewell TRANCE JAZZ SINGER SACHAL
Duran’s
VASANDANI’S
SUPERSTAR NEW ALBUM
ARMIN VAN
THE BIG BANG RICKY KEJ BUUREN ON
RETURNING Ed Sheeran
Return To
THEORY OF
BLACKSTRATBLUES
AIMS FOR TO INDIA Justin Rahul Ram
Taylor Swift
Spotlight
Cannibal HOLLYWOOD Q&A: Bieber Suman Sridhar
Marilyn Manson
Corpse’s FLORENCE Fever in Vishwesh
Indian
Debut
ALABAMA
SHAKES WELCH Hong Krishnamoorthy
Mark Ronson
NEW MIDIVAL
PUNDITZ
Kong and more
RELEASE
Metal MUMFORD
DHRUV ORANGE Wire
GHANEKAR’S
BRILLIANT
SECOND ALBUM
IS THE
Cradle of
& SONS
DANNY NEW BLACK Filth
On the road
Being
DEVITO
PRETTY
LIGHTS
SEARCHING
FOR
DEAD
AFTER
The Rise
NOTE
DEFICIT Girls Sycorax
Zygnema
KIM!
Inside Her
KURT
IN
JERRY
Gone
INDIA Real World
Ringo
WHY ARE SO
Of The
THE SHAMBLING, MANY INDIAN
MUMFORD BANDS
STRAINED
& SONS’ AFTERLIFE – AND DISGRUNTLED?
Wrong
ELECTRIC
Frances Cobain IMPROBABLE
Female DJs
SURPRISE TRIUMPH –
and the Father OF THE GREATEST
JAM BAND OF HELL’S
She Never Knew
A BEATLE’S
THEM ALL
AMBASSADORS
ALL-STARR LIFE ELECTROVERTZ ARE AMONG THE MANY WOMEN
AUSTRIAN DEATH
METAL ACT
FIRING UP THE NEW EDM SCENE IN INDIA BELPHEGOR IN INDIA
THIS MONTH
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BEST OF THE YEAR INDIAN ALBUMS P. 3 2 | SI NGL E S P. 3 6 | VIDEOS P. 3 8
Rock&Roll HAIL TO
ALBUMS
THE QUEEN
Beyoncé in New York,
October 2016
OF THE
YEAR
Bey’s triumph, Bowie’s
farewell and the gospel
according to Chance
1 Beyoncé
Lemonade
Be yoncé shu t
ever yone else
dow n t h i s ye a r
w it h a sou l- on-
f ire masterpiece,
test if y ing about
love, rage a nd
betrayal that felt all too true in the
America of 2016. The queen delivered
a confessional, genre-devouring
suite that’s larger than life yet still
heartbreakingly intimate, because it
doubles as her portrait of a nation in
flames. She dropped Lemonade as a
Saturday-night surprise after her HBO
special, moving in on every strain of
American music from country (“Daddy
Lessons”) to blues metal (“Don’t Hurt
Yourself”) to post-punk-gone-Vegas
dancehall (“Hold Up”) to feminist hip-
hop windshield-smashing (“Sorry”).
Even with “All Night” as an ambiguous
resolution, it’s a whole album of hurt,
which is why it especially hit home
after the election. Beyoncé explores
J STONE/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
what it’s like to get sold out by a lover

– or a nation – that fooled you into
feeling safe. The question of whether
she’s singing about Jay Z is moot
because – unfortunately – it turned
out to be about all of us.
R&R
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2 David Bowie
Blackstar 3 Chance the Rapper 4 Car Seat Headrest 5 Frank Ocean
Coloring Book Teens of Denial Blonde
There’s never been a musical The year’s finest hip-hop album Here is the year’s most surefire It took four years to construct
farewell anything like Blackstar had a vision as radiant as its guitar alchemy, full of riffs that this quietly audacious follow-up
– the Cracked Actor saved his pink-sky cover art. Chance revolve like strobe lights and to Ocean’s breakout R&B game-
bravest and boldest performance the Rapper’s third mixtape lyrics that flash insights, slogans changer, Channel Orange. That
for the final curtain. Bowie c ombi ne s ra d ic a l polit ic s and jokes so quickly they erase care came through in the music.
showed up on his 69th birthday and heavenly uplift to create any difference between them. Blonde is a tripped-out marvel
to drop a surprise masterpiece, l i fe -a f f i r m i ng mu sic t hat After years of low-fi solo records, of smoldering, elusive digital-
let an astonished world puzzle doesn’t shy away from harsh Will Toledo put together a band age psychedelia. Dreamlike and
over the music for a couple of realities. Gospel choirs are the that helped take his writing to hushed, as influenced by Brian
days and then slipped off into the backbone of this ecstatic LP, the next level. “Friends are better Eno as by Beyoncé, these songs
sky. Nearly a year later, Blackstar but everything on Coloring Book with drugs. . . . Drugs are better are drowned in memories that
still gives up fresh mysteries seems to take a spiritual hue – with friends,” he sings in the one keep threatening to slip away:
with every listen. This came on “I don’t make songs for free, I about taking mushrooms and childhood, love, that time you
as one of the Starman’s most make ’em for freedom,” he raps not transcending – his songs are took acid and got your Jagger
dizzyingly adventurous albums, on the soulful “Blessings.” The full of girls who offered empathy on. Chasing a freedom that’s
stretching out in jazzy space backdrop is a Chicago in crisis, instead of sex, and medicine always temporary – musical,
ballads like “Lazarus,” or the the sound big enough to make cabinets where you could choose emotional, sexual – was the idea,
10-minute title epic. (Producer room for futurist vocoder soul a new personality. Yet the sound as on “White Ferrari,” where
Tony Visconti revealed Bowie and bedrock African-American is anything but depressed. Like Ocean rewrites the Beatles’
was soaking up inspiration from music. Chance’s rhyme style is Nirvana building from quiet to “Here, There and Everywhere”
artists like Kendrick Lamar and complex but friendly, reflecting a explosive, Car Seat Headrest to recapture a teenage joyride, or
D’Angelo.) But it took Bowie’s vision that’s resilient, optimistic know how to be intimate and “Pink + White,” a fleeting, string-
death to reveal Blackstar as and irresistible. epic at the same time. bathed vision of late-summer
his rumination on mortality bliss. Nothing on Blonde is easy
– a ng uished, bit tersweet , to pin down. Tracks slip from
mournful, refusing to give in outer space to church, from
to self-pity even as he sings his GOING DEEPER INTO 2016’S BEST MUSIC thoughts of Trayvon Martin to
passionate final word, “I Can’t To see our top 50 albums and singles of the year, along with blunt lover-man brags, from his
Give Everything Away,” a song lists of the best LPs in pop, hip-hop, R&B, country, dance mind to your desires – opening
every bit as moving as “Heroes.” and more, go to RollingStoneIndia.com. room for every listener to slip
inside.
6 Radiohead
A Moon Shaped Pool 7 The Rolling Stones
Blue & Lonesome 8 Kanye West
The Life of Pablo 9 Leonard Cohen
You Want It Darker
Radiohead’s f irst album in The Stones returned to their “Guernica”-size sprawl to make Like Blackstar, this powerful
five years is among their most deepest roots with a raw set Picasso’s head spin. Peaks like statement came just before the
ravishingly beautiful, awash in of Chicago blues covers. It “Ultralight Beam” and “30 artist left us. At 82, Cohen offered
piano, violin and acoustic-guitar sounds like 1963, but it’s the Hours” are West at his summit, a stark, haunting meditation
frills. Yet somehow it’s never wisdom of age that helps adding up to a f ractured on love and death. “I’m ready,
soothing – as Thom Yorke warns them connect with these statement of his life as the my Lord,” he sings, his voice
here, the truth will mess you up. classics. “38-year-old eight-year-old.” rumbling into the eternal.
Ja n u a r y 2 017 rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 9
R&R
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
16. Miranda Lambert

The Weight of These Wings
A country queen’s post-
break-up double-LP binge,
full of drinkin’, flirtin’, movin’
on and songs for the ages.
17. Parquet Courts

Human Performance
These guitar-bending
10 11 12
adventurers have never
Young Thug Solange Paul Simon sounded so freewheeling,
Jeffery A Seat at the Table Stranger to Stranger with a New York malaise
added to the perfect Bob
Dylan/Lou Reed ambience.
The strongest album yet from A neo-soul statement Simon’s 13th LP is packed
hip-hop’s most captivating as graceful as it is with genre-bending sonics, 18. The 1975
vocalist. Thugger wheezes, unsettling. A f ter years of blues snap and deep I Like It When You Sleep,
for You Are So Beautiful Yet
howls and grumbles his way t r y i ng d i f fer ent g en r e s , anxieties. The lyrics touch So Unaware of It
through hypnotically tripped- Bey oncé’s sis landed on a on m a s s sho ot i ng s a nd This year’s breakout U.K.
out tracks like “Kanye West,” smooth-flowing minimal R&B income inequality. But there rockers live up to the hype
which is just as messed- that comes with hard-hitting is consolation in the music with Duranian flash, INXS
throb and dreamy emo
up brilliant as the man who lyrics about pain, power and itself – swaying, popping,
beauty.
inspired it. modern black womanhood. weird and lovely.
19. Danny Brown
Atrocity Exhibition
Billie Joe Armstrong Detroit hip-hop wild card
goes scarily deep into the
dark side of partying. The
result: a thrilling cry for help.
20. Nick Cave and

the Bad Seeds
Skeleton Tree
Goth-punk icon responds to
the tragic loss of his son with
agonized ballads that plunge
into the heart of darkness.
21. Margo Price

Midwest Farmer’s Daughter
Whip-smart retro-country
artist opens up some Loretta
Lynn-style whoop-ass on one
of the year’s most striking
debuts.
22. Bon Iver

Margo 22, a Million
Price Alt-folk star Justin Vernon
sets down his guitar and
leaps into the future for
an album of lush, ethereal
android-R&B.
23. Mitski
Puberty 2
The Brooklyn indie rocker’s
fourth LP feels at once artful,
AIJA LEHTONEN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG);
unhinged and revelatory. A

weird, rewarding listen.
24. Drive-By
DEBBY WONG/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (MARGO PRICE)
Truckers
13 Maren Morris
Hero 14 Green Day
Revolution Radio 15 LVL UP
Return to Love
American Band
DBTs mix political dissections,
vivid memoir and Stones-
Skynyrd guitar fire as they
Morris embodies country’s Green Day’s most explosive set The se Brook ly n it e s’ neo - reckon with Trump’s America.
rule-breaking new freedom. since 1994’s Dookie is a punk- Nineties guitar moves aren’t
She prays at the church of Cash rock rager steeped in decades just sharper than everyone else’s 25. Rihanna
Anti
and Hank. But songs like “Rich” of emotiona l a nd music a l – the songs are packed with a Pop’s top singles artist shows
and “80s Mercedes” are full of experience – from the ringing spiritual hunger that doesn’t let she’s awesome with albums
pop charm, R&B swagger and call for clarity “Somewhere Now” up even when it seems like life too, exploring psych-funk on
rock-guitar crunch. to the Who-huge “Forever Now.” might crush them. her own cloud-blowing terms.
R&R
SINGLES OF THE YEAR

Beyoncé owned our world, Drake lit up the dance floor,
and Rae Sremmurd got their John Lennon on
BY ROB SH EF F IELD
1
Beyoncé
Beyoncé
Formation
Beyoncé dropped this battle cry

at the Super Bowl, shocking the
nation with her Black Panther-
inspired imagery. “Formation”
was the omnipresent hit that
just seemed to get more massive
and demanding with time. Even
before the rest of Lemonade
existed, it stood as Bey’s most
lyrically defiant and musically
militant statement about who she
is, where she’s from and where
she’s going, declaring, “My daddy
Alabama/My ma Louisiana/You
mix that Negro with that Creole
make a Texas bama.” That Mike
Will Made It synth hook is the Frank Ocean
hot sauce in her bag, an ominous
warning siren. From an artist
who’s already spent so long at
the center of American culture, it
was a statement of blackness and
feminism, and a party invitation
nobody could resist. “Formation”
is a song that has kept hope alive
in a bleak year – and it will be
essential ammo for the struggle
to come. Get in formation.
2 Frank Ocean
Ivy
PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT (BEYONCE); CAITLIN CRONENBERG (DRAKE);

Drake
It was worth the wait. Ocean
sings an avant-R&B tale of
3 4
hear tbrea k over distor ted and rock elements of his music
electric guitar, his plaintive with a sensibility that still Drake David Bowie
voice confessing, “I thought feels unmistakably hip-hop. One Dance No Plan
that I was dreaming when you In “Ivy,” he gives the sense of
said you loved me.” The guitar a diary entry where a long-
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (FRANK OCEAN)
– from Rostam Batmanglij, late buried memory surges back Aubrey Graham celebrated the big Recorded during the Blackstar
of Vampire Weekend – follows into his mind in bits and 3-0 by scoring his first Number sessions, but held back for the
him all through the song, as pieces. Even if his broken One hit as a lead artist: a tropical Lazarus cast recording, “No Plan” is
he revisits memories of lost romance was sheer misery at summer jam with a Caribbean a magnificent coda. The Thin White
youth and innocence. It’s the the time, he still misses it, right lilt that evokes Lionel Richie in Duke sings a spectral torch ballad
most powerful song Ocean has down to the way he mourns, pastel-shirt mode. When Drake about floating over New York City;
created yet (also co-written “We’ll never be those kids mixes in Nigerian singer Wizkid he gazes down on Second Avenue
with producer Om’Mas Keith again” – building to a Brian and London diva Kyla, he turns with a ghostly sax as his life fades
and Jamie xx), a highlight of Wilson-worthy wipeout wave “One Dance” into a Utopian fusion out of sight – one last transmission
Blonde that mixes up the soul of bittersweet angst. of global styles, by way of Toronto. from the Bowie universe.
SINGLES OF THE YEAR
16. Chance the Rapper feat.

5 Kanye West
Ultralight Beam 6 PWR BTTM
Projection 7 Solange
Cranes in the Sky Saba
Angels
Chance gives it up to his native
Kanye goes to church, with a The glitter punks sing about Solange describes the kind of Chicago with this steel-drum funk,
gospel choir chanting, “This growing up queer and scared sadness she can’t escape by spreading juked-up positivity through
is a God dream.” He brings in and lonesome, staring out crying, drinking, sexing or the streets.
Kirk Franklin, Kelly Price, the- the window at the other kids, shopping it away. The music
Dream and Chance the Rapper lamenting, “My skin isn’t made builds from quiet meditation – 17. Lucy Dacus
to help him plant a foot on the for the weather.” It gets to the that Raphael Saadiq bass – into I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore
devil’s neck. heart of how this year felt. towering soul. Mixed-up identity confusion with some
Johnny Ramone in her guitar and a
voice that leaps straight to your heart.
Fifth Harmony, Ty Dolla Kanye 18. The Monkees

8 $ign
Work From Home
West Me & Magdalena
What a comeback: Mike Nesmith shows
off all the mileage on his country-fried
A celebration of the joys of the pipes in this superb road-weary ballad.
freelance life, which for them
means having insane amounts 19. Danny Brown
of sex on the clock. That light- Really Doe
headed beat spiced up the radio His hard-stomping posse cut, passing
all year, as these pop divas keep the mic to Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul
working overtime. and Earl Sweatshirt in a virtuoso battle
rhyme.
20. Bob Dylan

9 LVL UP
Pain That Old Black Magic
Dylan pays his respects to the Chair-
man of the Board, yet somehow brings
The year’s most heart-shredding his own sense of menace to it.
air-guitar jam. The Brooklyn 21. 21 Savage and Metro
indie upstarts deliver a hate song Boomin feat. Future
that feels so real because it’s also X
a love song, rocking out with a The Atlanta rappers team up for a
climactic guitar outburst that creepy thugged-and-drugged banger,
reaches back to Dinosaur Jr. and boasting, “I spent your rent inside the
Neil Young. mall.”
22. Ariana Grande feat.
Nicki Minaj
10 11 12
Side to Side
Rae Sremmurd Young M.A. Red Hot Chili Peppers
Black Beatles Dark Necessities The teen-pop princess turns dangerous
OOOUUU
woman on an ode to having so much
sex you can’t walk straight the next
No wonder Macca himself is a An up-and-coming Brooklyn Their big comeback-hit collabo day.
fan. The rap duo come together MC who’s definitely got her own with Danger Mouse. Anthony
and rock their John Lennon voice – she’s a bully, a boss, a Kiedis gets personal about his 23. Little Big Town
lenses with a party-and-bullshit lesbian and a thug, ruling the darkest, druggiest memories, Better Man
anthem so undeniable it hit radio with a club banger about over a Flea bass line full of blood, Taylor Swift writes one of 2016’s best
Number One. A blunted time is sipping that drink, smoking that sugar, sex and magic. country hits – a catchy tale of weeping
guaranteed for all. loud, stealing your groupies. in front of the mirror at four in the
morning.
24. Courtney Barnett

13 Mannequin Pussy
Romantic 14 Kendrick Lamar
untitled 05 | 09.21.2014 15 Wilco
If I Ever Was a Child Three Packs a Day
CARL BJORKLUND/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
The Aussie indie prodigy fesses up to

her rock & roll vices, but she’s mainlin-
The Philly punks celebrate K. Dot debuted this as part of his Jeff Tweedy at his most low- ing ramen noodles, not cigarettes.
moder n roma nc e a s a epochal Grammys performance key and likable, a three-min-
hel l hole , bl a s t i ng out in February, tapping into spir- ute acoustic memory of growing 25. Leonard Cohen
shoegaze guitar fuzz. “You itual doubts with a sax sample up miserable in the Midwest- Treaty
would sleep with me if you from jazz legend Eric Dolphy ern suburbs, with a taste of Nels The ultimate Zen sage offers a poetic
could do it comfortably” is a and a heavenly R&B hook sung Cline twang to make the pain go goodbye to the battlefield and the
valentine to remember. by Anna Wise. down smooth. bedroom. Farewell, old friend.
R&R
REISSUES OF THE YEAR

2016’s best archival sets – from Floyd’s early odyssey
to Dylan’s greatest tour, from deep funk to outlaw country
BY DAV ID F R ICK E
1 Pink Floyd
The Early Years 1965-1972
Here is the ultimate saucerful of

secrets: the definitive alternate
history of this band’s ody ssey
from madcap psychedelia to
megastardom in more than two
dozen hours of rare audio and
video, including film scores and
unique collaborations. Early
TV clips chart Syd Barrett’s
shock ing psychic descent;
the next five years with David
Gi l mou r show t he Floyd
pressing through inner space,
INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE
soon to land on The Dark Side of
Pink Floyd in 1971
the Moon. A two-CD set collects
27 highlights.
4 R.E.M. albums ever made: demos, rough concer t broadcast in 197 1.

Out of Time: mixes, every final master. This The result is a thrilling report
2 Bob Dylan Deluxe Edition is everything in nerve, sweat – almost daily in the 1969
The 1966 Live Recordings and tears that surviving Big Star tracks – on Led Zeppelin’s
The best new American band members Alex Chilton and Jody ferocious progression toward
The set lists were the same of the Eighties took a striking Stephens and their producer Jim the panoramic force and finesse
every night. But it was always a turn into the next decade on Dickinson gave on the way to with which they would rule
different shootout as Dylan took 1991’s Out of Time, a Number this willful fusion of avant-pop throughout the Seventies.
his transformations in singing, One masterpiece of folk-rock exploration, rattling funk and
9
writing and electricity on the modernism and emotional brutally direct, romantic candor. Ian Hunter
road – driving audiences to c omplex it y. Th i s foren sic Stranded in Reality
fury and ecstasy, reveling in the examination of the record’s
amplified power of the future genesis and glow, with demos Kris Kristofferson Ex-Mott the Hoople singer
Band. There are sterling acoustic
sets too, like Sheffield, England,
on May 16th, when Dylan’s voice
and live-radio action, is a fitting
25th-birthday party. 7 The Complete Monument
and Columbia Album
Collection
Hunter is a working legend.
This British Dylan has steadily
cut solo albums of visceral,
is pure, naked force. There has probing rock since 1975, and is
5
never been another tour like it. Betty Davis This Rhodes scholar and Army still touring harder than much
These 36 CDs tell the whole tale. The Columbia Years vet was country songwriting’s younger men. These 28 discs
1968-1969 first modern outlaw, a Dylan are that life in full so far, with
David Bowie At this ’69 session, the R&B who spoke in the Grand Ole plenty from Hunter’s Seventies
3 Who Can I Be Now?
(1974-1976)
singer – then Mrs. Miles Davis
– was co-produced by her
O pr y ver n a c u la r. The 11
studio albums and bonus live
golden age alongside guitarist
Mick Ronson.
husband. The marriage ended; and demos discs, covering
The prev iously unrelea sed the music was shelved. But the Kristofferson’s first decade on
twist in this set is The Gouster,
a 1974 white-soul project that
funk, featuring Bitches Brew
sidemen and Jimi Hendrix’s
record, are an expansive lesson
in acute emotional narrative and
10 Terry Reid
The Other Side of
the River
evolved into 1975’s Young rhythm section, still crackles gritty melodic charisma.
Americans. But this box tells with eros and edge. This English singer’s 1973 LP,
a bigger stor y of impulsive River, was a dusky folk, funk
Led Zeppelin
studio and live drive: Bowie’s
8 and Brazilian-pop gem that
6
passage out of glam through Big Star The Complete BBC inexplicably died on release.
© PINK FLOYD ARCHIVE
apocalyptic obsession (1974’s Sessions These outtakes are a marvelous

Complete Third
Diamond Dogs), crafty R&B, In early 1969, rock’s heaviest window into the making of
and stark futurism (1976’s This three-CD set is the last ne w b a nd r e c or de d f i v e Reid’s original, underrated
Station to Station), on his way word on one of the greatest – exclusive sessions for British classic – and a seductive triumph
to Berlin. and most harrowing – rock radio, returning for an epic on their own.
R&R
MOVIES OF THE YEAR

In 2016, Hollywood saw a world where black lives matter,
a musical had meaning, and no subject was too hot to tackle
BY PET ER T R AV ERS
7 Sully
1 La La Land
Clint Eastwood’s brand of
A musical as movie of the year? classic, no-bullshit filmmaking
Bet your ass. Damien Chazelle f ind s per fec t for m a s a
directs this rapturous song-and- beautifully understated Tom
dance romance as if cinema was Hanks plays Capt. Chesley
invented for him to play with and Sullenberger, the hero pilot who
for us to get high on. Emma Stone ditched his disabled plane on
and Ryan Gosling hit career the Hudson River and saved
peaks as lovers who try to make the lives of all on board. Job well
their creative dreams come true done. That goes for the man and
on the mean, art-fearing streets the movie.
of the New Hollywood. La La
Land swings for the fences. 8 Loving
Chazelle puts his heart right out
there where hipsters can mock The young Arkansas director
him as tragically untrendy. He’s Jeff Nichols may join the ranks
not. He’s an innovator, a fresh of Eastwood and Scorsese if
talent who puts technique in the he continues to craft films
service of feeling and makes the as stirring as this one. Joel
future of film seem like a bright 1 Edgerton and Ruth Negga
prospect. excel as Richard and Mildred
For Your Loving, the mixed-race couple
2 Manchester Consideration whose 1958 marriage got them
by the Sea arrested in Virginia and whose
(1) La La Land, with legal fight became a civil rights
C a s e y A f f le c k g i v e s t he Stone and Gosling. landmark.
(2) Fences, with
performance of the year as a
Washington, Davis.
Boston janitor faced w ith (3) Moonlight, 9 Hell or High Water
unspeakable tragedy. In only featuring Sanders.
his third film, writer-director 3 2 David Mackenzie’s modern-day
Kenneth Lonergan cuts to the Western doesn’t do anything
core of what makes us human monumental as a former Negro and its meaning in a material new, but it does everything
and gives us the strength to carry League baseball player now world have long obsessed Scor- right. Chris Pine and Ben
DALE ROBINETTE/LIONSGATE (1); DAVID LEE/PARAMOUNT PICTURES (2); DAVID BORNFRIEND/A24 (3)
on. collecting garbage in Pittsburgh sese. Silence is alternately Foster play West Texas brothers
and roaring against anything brutal and cerebral. Some may who come up against the law in
3 Moonlight that challenges his authority balk at grappling with moral the person of Jeff Bridges at his
as husband and father. Viola ambiguity for two and a half sly, old-coot best. A B movie
Three wonderful actors (Alex Davis is Oscar material as his hours. Who needs them. Scor- raised to the level of rough art.
Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and wife. The film betrays its origins sese has crafted a film of potent
Trevante Rhodes) play the same as a play. But what a play. And provocation and fervent heart. 10 Birth of a Nation
boy at different stages of growing you won’t see performance
up black, gay and alienated in the fireworks like this anywhere. 6 Jackie One of the damn shames of this
Miami projects. Director Barry movie year is the way director
Jenkins handles every aspect of 5 Silence Jackie Kennedy has been so Nate Parker’s incendiary telling
filmmaking, from dialogue to microscopically examined in of the 1831 slave rebellion led
visuals, like the young master Mar tin Scorsese’s passion the media that you wonder what by Nat Turner (a stellar Parker)
he is. project (in development since else is there to tell. And then you got lost in the controversy over
1990) follows two Portuguese see her in Jackie, in the days the charges against Parker for
4 Fences Jesuits (Andrew Garfield and following JFK’s assassination, sexually assaulting an 18-year-
Adam Driver) to 17th-century and you think you hardly knew old woman at Penn State in
What a triumph for Denzel Japan, where they search for her. Such is the revelatory vision 1999. He was acquitted at trial,
Washington, who directs and their mentor priest (Liam of Chilean filmmaker Pablo but the court of public opinion
stars in the film version of the Neeson) and risk tor ture Larraín and the astonishing has left a flawed yet formidable
stage success by the late, great a nd death for prea ching Nata lie Portman in the title film struggling for the wide
August Wilson. Washington is Christianity. Matters of faith role. audience it deserves.
R&R
LO COUNTRY
Lady Wood
debuted at
Number 11 on
the album
charts.
Tove Lo’s High Life

The Swedish singer has become one of pop’s most interesting stars
by singing honestly about sex, drugs and heartache
BY B R I T TA N Y SPA NOS
T
ove lo grew up in a posh sub- deeper into darker moments. The record’s Lo began writing songs for groups like
urb of Stockholm, riding horses, most personal tracks go back to that placid- Icona Pop and Girls Aloud, and she found
doing gymnastics and hanging out seeming childhood, including “Imaginary her way into Max Martin’s production col-
at her friends’ summer homes. It Friend.” “When I was a kid, I loved to play lective Wolf Cousins, with whom she earned
was an idyllic childhood – on the surface. on my own,” she says. “I had an imaginary Grammy and Golden Globe nominations in
“I remember having a sadness in me all the friend, and whenever I wanted to do some- 2015 for writing Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me
time,” says Lo, who was born Ebba Tove thing and didn’t dare to, this friend would Like You Do.”
Elsa Nilsson to a psychologist mom and tell me, ‘Do it! Do it!’ ” While working on Lady Wood, Lo di-
businessman dad. “It’s not really something As a teen, Lo attended Sweden’s version vided her time between Sweden, where
[my family] would talk about.” of the Fame high school, Rytmus Musiker- she still lives, and other locations, includ-
Lo has grown up to become pop’s con- gymnasiet, much to the dismay of her par- ing Nicaragua. “We would work all day and
fessional cool kid of the moment, thanks ents. “They didn’t think I was going to get then go on a catamaran ride in the sunset
to her very Swedish ability to turn heart- in, but then I got in and they saw how happy and dance on a boat and drink mai tais,”
ache into gleaming pop hooks, often with I was,” she recalls. “They let me go any- she says. “Everyone was getting really high
maximum bluntness about sex and drugs. way.” At Rytmus, Lo met lifelong friends, and just watching dolphins jump along the
On her breakthrough hit, 2014’s “Habits including Caroline Hjelt of the hitmaking boat. [That trip] was where all the ideas
(Stay High),” she boasted of frequenting Swedish duo Icona Pop. A few years later, came out.”
sex clubs, picking up “daddies at the play- a messy breakup helped Lo find her voice Although she still sings about getting
ground” and getting blazed in order to ward as a songwriter. “[That breakup] launched high, songwriting, as much as chemicals,
off romantic despair. Her new album, Lady that whole side of me,” she says. “In terms of is her therapy. “Sometimes the best way to
Wood, mixes female empowerment – the the tone and the messiness and my lyrics, I get over something is to feel it and just be in
MATT JONES
title, she has said, is “about reclaiming the found myself realizing that no one could tell that shitty place for a bit,” she says. “That’s
female hard-on” – with songs that dig even me that it’s wrong because it’s me.” what I realized.”
ROCK&ROLL
Mumbai Rockers Blakc POP STUFF

Plot Third Album
BY SOLEIL NATHWANI
The band turned an idyllic farmhouse into a

Happily, Ever, After.
O
n my last visit to Mumbai, my niece had
makeshift studio ahead of recording their just turned five. She traipsed into little
upcoming release girldom, plaits ablaze, dress twirling,
bracelets chiming. Aware that womanhood
lay waiting in a land not quite so far, far, away,
she asked me as she tried to make sense of it
all, why was I wearing a ring if I wasn’t married and who was
my husband going to be. As I gently explained that rings are an
equal opportunity accessory and that happily ever afters can be
found beyond the altar, I was inwardly exasperated that even
in an era of resurgent feminism and ambitious role models, we
are still hemmed in by arcane stereotypes. Not quite sure who
to point the culpable, bejeweled finger at, it struck me that the
messaging begins in part with the very first tales we tell. Well
before they can aspire to be the next Angela Merkel, Sania
Mirza or Sheryl Sandberg, most girls encounter the Fairy-Tale
Princess. And that poses a problem. Stories of dainty feet in
glass slippers are firmly at odds with shattering glass ceilings.
This is not to say that there is a dearth of inspiring narratives for
the next generation. Classics like Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles
of Narnia and Nancy Drew have given us protagonists that would
give today’s feminists a run for their money. Contemporary
authors, J.K. Rowling chief among them, have created bold,
Blakc empowered role models like Hermione Granger. And cinema
screens are increasingly seeing heroines who hold their own;
L
ast november, whether it is the bravery of Moana protecting her tribe, the
“The songs are
Mumbai alt rockers bonds of sisterhood trumping all else in Frozen, the fearlessness
Blakc packed up their shorter, riff-oriented, of Katniss in The Hunger Games or Furiosa saving the world
equipment and moved hard-hitting and all by herself as Mad Max plays the Robin to her Batman. And
into a rented bungalow in heavier.” yet somehow Cinderella still has a more than a fighting chance
K ar jat, in the outskir ts of against Wonder Woman as they vie to capture the imagination.
t he cit y, for a week . The Choking On A Dream and the Fairy Tales and their archetype of the Distressed Damsel
agenda wa s clear- cut— 2012 banger Motheredland . awaiting her Charming Prince continue to be an enduring part
spend a good amount of time Since they didn’t get into any of shaping our collective female consciousness. The trailer for
together playing and testing elaborate pre-production on Disney’s 2017 version of Beauty and The Beast set a new record,
new material. Says vocalist the previous two records, they watched 127 million times in the first day alone. At their core,
Shawn Pereira, “We thought decided to try it out for their Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty exalt the stories
why not just cut off from every- forthcoming release. Pereira of heroines without agency; beauty and goodness are their chief
thing and hear our songs over says, “This time we thought attributes, patience is their fortitude and marriage to a handsome
and over again!” about it a lot more and wanted ruler is the grand prize. The subliminal message is that if you sit
The ‘workcation’ away from to capture even the minute pretty and don’t complain, you’ll have a happy ending—wedding
the urban jungle not only fixed things.” bells and a life with a man that can look after you. This is hardly
the writer’s block Pereira was The new record will consist of a recipe for the next great She. E. O.
experiencing but also helped nine songs, with no track longer So if Fairy Tales are undoubtedly here to be retold, how do we
the band get ready to record than four-and-a half minutes. tackle the Princess Problem? We reframe the narrative to reflect
t hei r t h i rd a lbu m , t it le d Says Pereira, “The songs are a feminist ethos. Snow White and The Huntsman presents a
The Consequence Of Feeling. shorter, riff-oriented, hard- Snow White who is as much warrior as princess. She saves the
Blakc were joined by sound hitting and heavier. We’re going Huntsman’s life and wages war against the Queen. Maleficent
engineer Anupam Roy, formerly back to our roots.” has a similarly revisionist approach, retelling Sleeping Beauty
of New Delhi record label and The band are currently in the from the point of view of the villainess, showing that there is more
ar tist collective Grey and process of tracking the album to the human psyche than simple takes on good and evil. And
Saurian. at the city-based That Studio. in the upcoming version of Beauty and the Beast, Belle’s looks
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (BLAKC)
Formed in 2007, the five- The album will release in a are just a side note to her skill as an inventor. We can empower
member band—also comprising few months, with promotions the next generation of five year olds by arming them with Fairy
bassist Roop Thomas Philip, ranging from a nationwide Tales that tell stories of Princesses who live by their own rules.
drummer Varun Sood and tour as well as busking gigs at Happily, Ever, After.
guitarists Anish Menon and each city they hit. A couple of
Reinhardt Dias—have so far music videos are also in the the The author is a film producer and journalist and a former
released two records, 2008’s pipeline. DAVID BRITTO hedge fund COO. Twitter: @whats_cutting
R&R
Vayali Folkore Group
Vayali Folkore Group: India’s First ‘Bamboo’ Band

The eight-member folk ensemble from Kerala perform with musical instruments
they have crafted out of bamboo
O
n a placid afternoon, we based—a cymbal-like instrument called “ We d id n’t ge t t he sou nd we were
arr ived at a sun-kissed the kaimani which is used for keeping time. looking for. That’s when we decided to do
paddy field in the outskirts of Pradeep K V, a member of the band it ourselves.”
Thrissur, Kerala, to see a band who is a house painter by profession, says, With over 500 shows to their credit,
perform with their peculiar “In 2007 we went to Japan and performed the band has been toying with the idea of
ba mboo instr ument s. Some of them alongside a bamboo band there. We thought scoring for films as well. Band manager
looked familiar—there was a rainmaker, a why not start a band like that here in Vinod Arangode is keen on pushing the
marimba and something that looked like a Kerala, especially when bamboo and its group’s music on a global scale. “On an
bamboo version of a xylophone—and some variants are a part of our culture.” average, we do around eight shows a month.
quite strange. That’s when we figured if It took four years to set up the band. With We are looking forward to taking this
you’re searching for the ideal DIY project, an initial count of 14 members, the group innovative music outside and expanding
there’s no need to look any further than the went through several modifications over our learning. We have a few offers to do
example set by the Vayali Folkore Group. the years. “Things became difficult because bamboo music for films. We are looking
A melting pot of folk music, dance and most members have their day jobs to keep, into that.”
tradition, the ensemble have been turning plus the logistics and hassles of bringing Although the Vayali Folkore Group own
heads with their unique bamboo-centred together all the members for practice and a proprietary sound, they don’t want to
music. The band’s inspiration to form a shows,” says Pradeep, who is joined by band be the only ones associated with it in the
bamboo music group came about following mates Rajesh K K, Manoharan K V, Sanoj, coming years. They want to do whatever
a tour of Japan in 2007. Back then, they Sajeev, Vishnujithu and Sujil Kumar T P. they can to popularize their instruments
were an indigenous folklore group formed The Vayali Folkore Group fuse intense and music. “We believe in the philosophy
by artists, most of who worked in the day as dance and percussion routines and perform of open exchange. We don’t want to keep
carpenters, electricians and farmers, intent warm hinterland tunes with occasional these instruments as our own property,”
on keeping their Valluvanad (a region in folk renditions of Celine Dion’s “My Heart adds Arangode.
South Malabar) traditions and culture Will Go On” or a Bollywood track like “Jia Mo s t of t he memb er s a r e mu lt i-
alive. Jale” thrown into the mix. But what truly instrumentalists and keep shuffling their
My tryst with the bamboo ensemble makes them unique is their dexterity and duties. The band is also keen to expand
happened dur ing a recent project to knack to invent new bamboo instruments. their repertoire outside the realm of folk.
document the thriving and dying cultures So far, they’ve designed and crafted nine And as much as they’d like to work on an
around Bharatapuzha aka r iver Nila new pieces, such as the kikkera and bumbe album, financial constraints have so far
with the responsible travel group called (percussion instruments) and thambor (a prevented them from pursuing that goal.
The Blue Yonder. The river (second longest bass instrument), and are working on two Says Arangode, “People are mixing Western
in the country) flows through three districts more. and traditional instruments and creating
in Kerala, namely Thrissur, Palakkad and Of course, desig ning and creating fusion kind of compositions. But, we only
Malapuram. instruments is no mean feat. “It’s costly to perform with bamboo instruments. In that
AJAY MENON
The eight-piece band was being led with get professionals to design and buy bamboo sense, it’s safe to assume we’re the only such
the progressions played by the f lautist. instruments,” says Kumar, explaining folk band in the country.”
Only one instrument stood out as metal- why they continue despite the challenges. MOHAN KUMAR K
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R&R
Pragnya Wakhlu’s JAZZCORNER BY SUNIL SAMPAT
Ode to Tibet
The New Delhi singer-songwriter tugs
Imitation, Flattery
And Tributes
at heartstrings with “Burning Fire,”
O
ne has heard musicians record
highlighting the struggles of Tibetans their musical tributes to other
musicians. For example you have
Satch Plays Fat s where L ouis
Pragnya
Wakhlu Armstrong (Satch) plays the music of Fats Waller,
the American pianist, singer and songwriter, or
Carmen McRae Sings Monk or The Latin Dizzy Gillespie by
various artists. These are just random examples to illustrate the
‘tribute’;there are plenty of other such instances. Everybody
sings the Beatles!
We have encountered a new type of tribute in recent times.
In 1963, John Coltrane and vocalist Johnny Hartman recorded
an album together called, of course, John Coltrane and Johnny
Hartman. It is an iconic album in many ways. The music is simple,
straightforward and very easy on the ears. These two fine musicians
had not met prior to the recording date. Hartman had misgivings
about the collaboration— he had heard the uptempo and even avant
garde playing of Coltrane, while he himself was a smooth balladeer
and wondered about the outcome. He need not have worried.
Coltrane had a mellow, sensitive, almost reflective side to his playing.
He brought this into play for this recording. The interesting and in
contemporary terminology ‘mind-boggling’ aspect to this: they did
the entire recording without a retake. What’s more, as they drove to
W
hen Ne w is a chilling reminder of Tibet’s the recording studio, they were not decided about the last song for
Delhi-based ongoing freedom struggle. In the album. Then they heard Nat King Cole on the car radio singing
singer-songwriter between vibrant shots of the Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” and decided to include that song. This
Pragnya Wakhlu traditional Tibetan opera routine is a complicated song with many changes and would normally
traveled to Dharamsala in performed by the students of the require several rehearsals. However, in the hands of these masters,
Himachal Pradesh two years Tibetan Institute of Performing it sounded perfect. This is a precious, seductive jazz album and today,
ago, she was, like most Indians, Arts, the film also shows a wall even 63 years since it was recorded, Coltrane and Hartman sounds
unaware about the Tibetan behind the Dalai Lama’s temple contemporary and relevant.
political crisis. But while there, on which are hung several framed A current jazz singer, Kurt Elling, like many of his generation, has
she heard the heart-wrenching photographs of teenagers—young been inspired enough by the Coltrane-Hartman album to create an
story of a lady who fled with her activists who took their own lives, entire album of his own in dedication to the masterpiece. The Elling
children when China occupied mostly by self-immolation, to release is, in fact, called Dedicated to You.
Tibet in 1950 and it moved protest Chinese atrocities against We recently saw a stage production in Mumbai of Mughal-E-
her. She says, “When I came Tibetans. Azam, which was inspired by and unabashedly dedicated to the
back to Delhi, I felt I just had The Tibetan cause has as film production of the same name. This again is wholehearted
to do something about this. I much to do with opposing praise and acknowledgement of a timeless masterpiece, much like
felt that I needed to share violence as demanding freedom that of Elling. Last year, American saxophonist Greg Banaszak had
with other Indians the story of expression. Says Wakhlu, “A played a concert of Bird With Strings, the music of Charlie Parker.
and culture of the Tibetans here. lot of the Tibetan singers who We had met Banaszak after the show and asked why he played the
There are so many things we try to speak out are shunned or entire concert exactly as Parker had recorded it. Banaszak’s reply
don’t know about them, like how even killed. I wanted to create was simple and honest, “Why mess with perfection!”
they are desperately trying to awareness about this in India. As I suppose in the fairly long history of jazz, there are musicians who
preserve their language.” musicians, if we’re able to spread have become pillars of the music and musical compositions which
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (PRAGNYA WAKHLU)
“Burning Fire” is Wakhlu’s a message through our music, we are pivotal in the development and growth of the art form. These are
contribution to the cause. While should.” pieces of art and go beyond being ‘standards’. It is marvellous for a
the soothing acoustic track “Burning Fire” was recorded young jazz musician to have this great material to use as his or her
invokes Tibetan verses (sung by in Mumbai and New Delhi, inspiration and development.
artists she met in New Delhi’s and will be a part of Wakhlu’s Duke Ellington had put it very eloquently, “If you want to know
Tibetan colony) the music video upcoming album on Kashmir, where you’re going, you’ve got to know where you’ve come from”.
gives an insight into Tibetan due March next year. Her first Amen to that.
culture. Shot over 10 days by album, Journey To The Sun ,
director Div ya Gopalan at released in 2012. Sunil Sampat is a jazz critic and Contributing Editor
Dharamsala earlier this year, it DAVID BRITTO of Rolling Stone India. Write to Sunil at [email protected]
R&R
TRIBUTE
A SONG
FOR YOU
Russell onstage
in California, 2014
1 94 2 -2 016
Leon Russell
Enigmatic pianist was a master bandleader and songwriter who
influenced Elton John and more
BY DAV I D F R ICK E
O
ne afternoon in the early nineties, singer- country music, down-home rhythm & blues and black Pentecostal-
pianist Bruce Hornsby was visiting his friend and hero church elation to classic early-Seventies records by Bob Dylan, Dave
Leon Russell at the latter’s home near Nashville. The Mason and the Rolling Stones, while cutting his own solo LPs with
house had a three-car garage and the doors “were wide Eric Clapton and the Stones as his sidemen.
open,” Hornsby recalls, with “things strewn all over: old mixing But Russell was best known for his turn as the musical director of
boards, awards tossed in a box, gold records, all this detritus. I said, English singer Joe Cocker’s 1970 U.S. tour with a cosmic-R&B big
‘Leon, what is all this?’ ” Hornsby affects Russell’s slow, gritty drawl. band of more than 20 singers and players, dubbed Mad Dogs and
“He said, ‘Residue from the fast lane.’ Englishmen, after a Noël Coward song. Russell assembled and re-
“That line said it all,” Hornsby says. Russell – who died on No- hearsed the troupe in just a week, and later co-produced its Top Five
vember 13th at 74 in Nashville after years of ill health, including a live double album. With his firm command of the music and the en-
heart attack in July – “grew up in an era where pop stardom was an tourage, set off by his trademark top hat and Jesus-like mane of sil-
ephemeral notion. If you achieved it, it didn’t last long. Maybe he ver-gray hair, Russell became the breakout star of the 1971 tour doc-
RANDY MIRAMONTEZ/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
thought his four- or five-year run as a top-drawer touring artist and umentary Mad Dogs and Englishmen – the so-called “Master of
record seller – as a rock star – was pretty damn good.” Space and Time,” after one of his credits on the live LP.
That winning streak actually ran longer: from the mid-Sixties – Russell “was a control freak,” says Jim Keltner, one of the drum-
when the Oklahoma-born Russell emerged as a first-call pianist, ar- mers on that tour. “But the control was about making a potentially
ranger and producer in Los Angeles, working on sessions for Frank chaotic thing into a fantastic revue with great singing, great play-
Sinatra, the Beach Boys, Ricky Nelson and the Byrds – until 1977, ing, great grooves.” Four decades after the Mad Dogs tour, Russell
when jazz guitarist George Benson’s Top 10 cover of Russell’s bal- looked back with modest realism at his commercial peak and his
lad “This Masquerade” won a Grammy for Record of the Year. In packed workload for other rock stars. “I was a jobber, like an air-
between, Russell applied a unique, instinctive blend of wheat-field- conditioning installer,” the pianist said in 2010. “You need air con-
R&R
1956-2016
Sharon Jones
The Brooklyn soul diva found success late in life as
a commanding, inspiring vocal powerhouse
B Y JA S ON N E W M A N
A
l i t t l e mor e t h a n 20 Jones spent years in wedding
years ago, when soul sing- bands and obscure funk acts. She
er Sharon Jones was in her was working as an armed guard
thirties, a music producer told her when she recorded her first songs
that she was “too short, too fat, as a solo artist in the mid-Nineties
too black and too old” to ever find at age 40, arriving to the session for
success. “They just looked at me “Damn It’s Hot” with a “gun hanging
and they didn’t like what they saw,” on my side.”
she told Rolli ng Ston e earlier She made six albums
this year. Jones, who died of can- w it h t he Dap -K ings, includ-
cer on November 18th at age 60 in ing 2014’s Gra mmy-nominat-
Cooperstown, New York, spent the ed Give the People What They
rest of her life proving her doubt- Want, released shortly after she was
ers wrong. diagnosed with pancreatic can-
As frontwoman for the Brook- cer. (Her battle with the disease is
lyn funk-soul band the Dap-Kings, chronicled in the 2016 documentary
she emerged as a ferocious live per- Miss Sharon Jones!) Despite serious
former whose power and command physical strain, Jones kept perform-
recalled her hero James Brown. ing between chemotherapy sessions,
“Sharon Jones had one of the most finding solace onstage. “When I
magnificent, gut-wrenching voices walk out, whatever pain is gone,” she
of anyone in recent times,” tweeted said. “There is no sickness. You’re SOUL FIRE
producer Mark Ronson, who worked just floating, looking in their faces Sharon Jones died of
with the Dap-Kings. and hearing them scream.” cancer last November
LEON RUSSELL In 1968, Russell released an album with guitarist Marc Benno
but largely stuck to guiding from the sidelines – appearing on a
ditioning? Call this guy. People called me to do what I did.” And Rus- 1969 album by the white-soul duo Delaney and Bonnie; writing
sell was not shocked when his stardom waned in the Eighties: “I was “Delta Lady” for Cocker that year. Russell’s biggest solo single, the
surprised by the success that I had. I was not surprised when it went dark, funky march “Tight Rope,” which went to Number 11 in 1972,
away.” Until his 2010 comeback, The Union, a collaboration with summed up his ambivalence about celebrity: “I’m up in the spot-
lifelong fan Elton John, Russell had not been on Billboard’s album light/Ooh, does it feel right/Oh, the altitude/Seems to get to me.”
charts in three decades. Yet Russell leveraged his rush of success – including a showstopping
“He’s a tough one to place,” says guitarist Derek Trucks, who ac- segment during George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangladesh and
knowledges that he and his wife, Susan Tedeschi, were inspired to the Top 10 LPs Carney and Leon Live, in 1972 and ’73, respectively
form their 12-piece Tedeschi Trucks Band after watching the Mad – into a series of willfully experimental records, featuring a coun-
Dogs film. “To people of a certain generation, Leon was a star, a total try project under the pseudonym Hank Wilson.
badass. Then he got lost in the mix. But young musicians know him. Hornsby calls Russell “a huge reason I got into the piano.” When
In the last five, 10 years, he became a cult hero again.” he produced Russell’s 1992 LP Anything Can Happen, he says, it was
Russell was born Claude Russell Bridges in Lawton, Oklahoma, clear who was really running things: After one near-perfect vocal
on April 2nd, 1942. His father, an oil-company clerk, moved the take, he asked Russell if he wanted to fix a small glitch. “On a Picas-
family to Tulsa when Claude was in the seventh grade. He took so level, that performance was my art,” Russell said. “Any changes
classical piano lessons as a boy; in Tulsa, Russell was soon playing to it would be dishonest.”
in local clubs, often with a friend, guitarist J.J. Cale. By 17, Russell Russell continued working despite increasing health problems. In
was in Los Angeles, borrowing IDs and musicians-union cards to 2010, he underwent brain surgery to repair a spinal-fluid leak. He
hustle work. He was using the name Leon Russell but never legally had trouble walking and “had gained a lot of weight,” says Keltner.
SERGEI BACHLAKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
changed it – an early sign of his taste for enigma. “It’s handy,” he con- But when Russell “sat at the piano, the feeling was all there.”
fessed. “I can be a different person for a while.” It was present again at one of Russell’s last major appearances
Keltner first worked with Russell on Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ when he joined the Tedeschi Trucks Band in a tribute set to the Mad
1966 hit “She’s Just My Style,” co-written and arranged by Russell. Dogs album at Virginia’s Lockn’ Festival in September 2015. Trucks
After the playback, “without saying a word,” Keltner says, Russell remembers respectfully offering to hand over leadership duties:
returned to the studio, grabbed a guitar and replaced a “wonder- “He was like, ‘Nope. I did it the first time. This one’s on you.’ ” Yet in
ful, sophisticated” solo with a catchy burst of country-blues twang. rehearsals, “Leon was the obvious musical director,” Trucks says,
“Leon had that thing that all great producers had: They know what “chiming in on harmonic things here and there, choir stuff in a very
they want, and they already hear it.” subtle way. But when he spoke, everyone listened.”
ELECTRONICA
FLOATING
POINTS:
‘I Think Everyone
Can DJ’
The English electronic musician on how DJing is more
about art than technique, his songwriting process,
traveling to India for a record, and more
By Kenneth Lobo
M
a nchest er-nat i v e Sa m On the album, I wrote and recorded
Shepherd is one of the DJ everything. Then I got demo versions and
heroes of the modern era. got friends to play the drums and the bass
He’s an audiophile in the vein and things like that properly. And now I
of pioneers like New York’s Loft founder have got this band together, and we spend
David Mancuso. He’s an obsessive record time recording together and straightaway it’s
digger, a gifted producer and holds a Ph.D become this live thing that I suddenly don’t
in Neuroscience. His critically acclaimed have control over! I mean, I still can control
debut album Elaenia’s restrained electronic what I want out of it…It’s a different thing, but
jazz funk made its way into most end of the I am having a lot of fun with it. It’s exciting.
year ‘Best Of’ lists. And his elegantly weaved, How would you compare the highs and
genre-hopping, marathon DJ sets are stuff lows of playing with the band and DJing?
of legends (check out this six-hour epic with Well, I always knew that when playing live,
Four Tet at the closing of London’s beloved bands put their soul on the line. There’s a lot
venue, Plastic People, in January last year). of passion. So even if I am not really into the
In the Internet Age of throwaway tracks music that the band is playing, I am always
and restless toggling, Shepherd likes to take deeply respectful of the fact that they are there
his time with DJ sets and look for space in doing their thing, and making a lot of effort
his compositions. Ditto with this interview, to try and do that thing.. It’s a very edifying
where, Shepherd deliberates every question process, and a most valid form of art.
with measured, thoughtful responses. DJing…I would always get embarrassed at
festivals if I was playing after a band. I would
It’s been a little over a year since your land up with just a bag of records! But now I
debut album Elaenia’s release. You’ve been actually have begun to value… maybe I always
touring with the band on the road a fair saw the value of a DJ but now I have missed it,
bit. How much has the live show evolved missed DJing so much this year—I am doing
in the past year? it a lot more. It’s really fun. There’s something
I wouldn’t change anything. It’s been different between good DJs and really good
amazing, having different permutations DJs. That is a skill, it’s an art. I think everyone
and combinations with the band. It’s been can DJ. Technically, it’s not difficult at all. But
a big band with strings, wind, brass and a the whole thing about selection, timing—
smaller band with just five of us. We have there are some parts of mixing which can be
tried most combinations. It’s a logistical artistic, an aesthetic. People like Ben UFO
nightmare. The band segues from a selection when he’s DJing… he really knows the sound
of the album into its own music and a lot of he wants. It blows my mind every time I hear
quite heavier music. I have been listening to a him DJ. I feel like I think have an aesthetic…
lot of rock music, which I wasn’t doing years it also depends on the kind of people in the
ago. Now I am very interested in psychedelic crowd…. I get too bored playing the same style
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
rock, I never used to listen to that. That is of music so I need to move it along.
influencing a lot of the music I am making
with the band. Now, I am definitely making This isn’t your first trip to India, right?
music for the band, which has definitely been What parts of the country did you check
a big change. out when you were here?
THRICE AS NICE
Jono Grant, Tony
McGuinness and
Paavo Siljamäki
ELECTRONICA
I was looking for one record when I came THRICE AS NICE

down to India, and it’s not a difficult record Jono Grant, Tony
to find but it was one that had a huge impact McGuinness and
on me: Ananda Shankar’s Missing…It’s so Paavo Siljamäki
unfathomably beautiful and dedicated to his
great uncle. That record was perhaps when I
went to India, but it wasn’t the key reason. I
spent three months in India – it was between
my degree and Ph.D, seven or eight years
ago. We stayed in Mumbai, then went south
to Kerala via Hampi, took the train up to
Delhi, and drove upto Leh, Ladakh, Srinagar
and drove into Amritsar and Chandigarh—
my friend was studying architecture. We
met a lot of people. We were living cheaply;
amazing experiences. I’m coming back for the
first time since then. A couple of my friends
were speaking about going back. I’m looking
forward to it!
You’re in a position now to make any

potential dream collaboration a reality.
Is there anyone that you would love to
collaborate with in the future?
Umm… I saw Anoushka Shankar on Jools
Holland the other day, and I was completely
blown away by how insanely good a musician
she is. That’s the kind of sound I would love
to work with, and it’s not because that I am
talking to ROLLING STONE India that I am
talking about an artist of Indian descent… down that I don’t even know these classic
I just caught her the other day and she is records like Stairway to Heaven, Pink Floyd
amazing. I don’t think about these kind of “There’s something and all this stuff. I’ve got a lot to learn. It’s
things, collaborations… I appreciate the different between good good to be informed. Like I said, being naïve
music she makes, that people make. I have
not done many collaborations in my life, and
DJs and really about Portuguese has given me a layer of
enjoyment… well that’s no excuse to not learn
whenever it’s happened, it’s happened by good DJs. That is a Portuguese. I haven’t reached a stage where
being in a room with this person, and there’s skill, it’s an art.” I can call myself an expert but neither can I
no pressure to make music. say the same about modern soul, or Brazilian
The one time I did do that was in Morocco, music. I don’t pretend to know anything
and it was an arranged collaboration with around with portable turntables so I can about the music. I just know that I like it.
Moroccan musician Maâlem Mahmoud always listen to records--a lot of shops
Guinia, and James Holden. And it worked don’t have record players. It takes time… In a post-Brexit, Donald Trump-ian,
really, really well, but I don’t think I could go that’s it. There are certain record dealers I increasingly fascist world, does it feel like
into a situation and instigate that situation. go to, who keep the good stuff and tell me just playing music from different races and
I would feel uneasy about doing that. I got to check out stuff. There are certain shops nationalities is a political statement?
one of my guitarists to buy a sitar-guitar here in Japan that give me some really nice records. I guess, one of the by-products of playing
(in Los Angeles). I really love the sound… I Sometimes they’re right, and sometimes they in all the places I do is a globalized view.
am really interested in the sounds of Indian are wrong. A few weeks ago, I bought this But then I’m preaching to the converted
classical music. I have got a lot of records, Jean Turrell record called No Limit for all of anyway. Yes, I think DJing itself can be a stand
and all the areas around India--Bangladesh, one dollar. It’s literally nothing, you could find but it’s not the same as having a profile and
Pakistan… all that music blows my mind and it anywhere and I put the needle on the record saying something political. That will probably
especially the vocal work. Indian classical and I was like, ‘Wow!’ So good, so beautiful. have more reverberations than just playing
musicians have this unattainable level of That was my latest find, and it’s even sweeter music from around the world.
dedication, it’s an example for the world. when it’s only a dollar!
You’re spending some time in India after
The past few years have put the spotlight You said in a Red Bull Music Academy the festival. Anything that you’re looking
back on crate-digging DJs. Everyone from lecture that you usually go through forward to on this trip?
Motor City Drum Ensemble to Sassy J different phases of music—modern soul, I’ve been to India before but I have never
talk about their particular approach to Brazilian music—what phase are you in been to Rajasthan. So I’m hoping to spend
digging. Do you have a particular ritual now? some time there. I find the bigger cities
or routine or technique that’s worked for I don’t know anything about psychedelic a little intimidating. I’m currently in the
TIMOTHEE CHAMBOVET
you? What’s your most recent best buy? rock… it’s like when I got really into Brazilian desert seeking some peace, maybe that’s why.
Hmm… I don’t have any technique. There music, I didn’t know anything about it. I could And, of course, as much as food as I can get
are certain shops, certain places that I probably have a conversation about it with my hands on. I went to a cookery school in
know I will get stuff. I am always digging someone now. Psychedelic rock… I totally Kerala when I was there last, and learnt how
around, listening to a lot of stuff. I travel know even less about it. I am starting so far to make parottas.
THE
LAST
WORD
Phil Collins
The singer on getting sober, his biggest regrets,
and why he admires Davy Crockett
Who are your heroes? Did you emerge a stronger person?
I’m fascinated with the Alamo, so I go back to Davy Crockett. Wiser, yeah. I got a sense of mortality, and then I didn’t drink
There was a lot of bravery on both sides of the walls. Crockett was for three years. Then, when we had our first Christmas in our new
an example of someone who could have left the fort, but he did the home, I had a couple of glasses of wine, but now it doesn’t go any-
right thing and stayed, and he was killed for it. Also, and I know where. An alcoholic is someone that wants to see the bottom of
this sounds random, but I admire Jack Nicholson. He’s so honest the bottle. I don’t consider myself an alcoholic. I made some mis-
as an actor, down to his hair. It’s always out of place. takes, for sure.
What book has left the most lasting impression on you? After injuring your back, you were unable to play drums any-
Romeo and Juliet touched me very much. It’s a bit more. How did you come to terms with that?
like the Alamo in its two factions. When the Fran- It happened gradually on the Genesis reunion tour
co Zeffirelli movie came out, I saw it many times. in 2007. Then I played with Clapton at Albert Hall for
I was drawn to the romance – total romance. I one song, and I had that feeling of “This isn’t happen-
do believe that childhood loves stick with you. ing.” That kind of scared me. The one thing I could
What’s the best part of success, and the worst rely on in life was that I could sit down at the drums
part? and it would sound good, and suddenly I couldn’t
The best part is other people saying that pull it together. Now, I’ve got a drum kit in my ga-
they like what you do. The worst part is that rage and I’ve got into a routine of practicing. I’m
it drags you onto the conveyor belt of work- trying to get my hands to feel natural again when I
ing all the time, to maximize the success. hold a pair of sticks. I’ve got some comeback shows
I just walked out of CBS and there were people booked for next year, and we’ll see what happens.
outside that wanted me to sign something. In the Any chance you’ll do more Genesis shows in the fu-
old days, it would be fans. Now it’s people selling ture?
something on eBay. I wish there was a chip in Writing the book reminded me how close
someone’s neck saying “real fan,” because it’s we were. Tony [Banks], Mike [Ruther-
not my style to diss people that have been ford] and I went out on my birthday in
waiting in the cold. London. We’re still great pals. Anything
What music still moves you the most? can happen, really. I just don’t want to
Leonard Bernstein’s West Side suddenly take the brakes off and start
Story. I listen to that on my comput- flying off and doing things. I want to
er. Songs like “Maria,” “Somewhere” do things carefully and think about
and “America” were so far ahead of the consequences.
their time. When you divorced your wife
In your new memoir, you write about Orianne eight years ago, you
the guilt you felt from not being had to give her £25 million,
around much when your older kids one of the costliest divorces
were younger. How do you get over in history. But you actually got
that? back together last year. Did that
You don’t. When I take my younger teach you something about forgive-
kids to football practice or give them ness?
advice, I’m reminded I didn’t do that Usually when there’s divorce, you fall
with my older kids. into “I don’t ever want to see you again,”
You recently got sober. What did you that kind of thing. Orianne and I stayed in
learn from the experience? touch, very closely. I called the boys pretty
I didn’t know I was close to dying. If much every day. It can be very difficult to
I had carried on drinking, my organs forgive. But in our situation, we both felt
would have started shutting down. I also we made a mistake. Our kids are obvious-
didn’t know the effect it was having on my kids. I ly over the moon.
was falling down because I was mixing alcohol with You’ve been divorced three times. Have you
[pain] medication. One time I was watch- ever thought about a prenup?
ing TV and I got up to give my sons a hug. I I think they’re unethical. They say, “Oh,
fell down and my teeth made two marks in darling, I love you forever, but just in
the tiles. There was lots of blood. I remem- case. . . .” It cost me a lot of money, but
ber Matthew saying to their nanny, “Dad- that’s lawyers for you. Anyway, I don’t
dy’s fallen over!” Putting an eight-year-old envision getting married again.
through that, it gives me chills. By the time I But if you did?
stopped, my family disintegrated. Within six I may. I’m just not considering
months, they’d moved away. that yet. INTERVIEW BY ANDY GREENE
Illustration by Mark Summers rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 25

R&R
F
Q&A
or y ears, mia mi producer man is that people will try to tear you
DJ Khaled was best known for down. “They” don’t want us to love.
shouting a triumphal three- “They” don’t want me to have a jet ski.
word phrase – “We the best!” – Even little things: “They” don’t want
over amped-up hip-hop tracks featur- you to have a bowl of Cinnamon Toast
ing friends like Jay Z, T.I. and Future. Crunch with almond milk!
Over the past year, though, Khaled has What will people get out of your book
transformed into a star in his own right. that they won’t get from following you
His latest album, Major Key, hit Num- on Snapchat?
ber One, but his surging fame is thanks They’re gonna get to know my story,
largely to his Snapchat account, where going through trials and tribulations,
he combines glimpses of the hip-hop weathering storms. I’ve always been the
high life (there are many jet-ski rides) guy who can walk into a dark room and
with weirdly compelling quotidian be the lightbulb. I bring joy and light.
scenes like Khaled watering a garden Now, I’m a father. If you thought I was
full of flowers he refers to as “angels.” going hard before, now I’m going super
Khaled has in turn become an unlikely hard.
digital-age motivational speaker, en- You’ve done more work to promote
couraging followers to absorb his “keys” Snapchat than anybody. Have they cut
to success. This month, he’ll release The you a check?
Keys, a memoir that bundles life lessons Nah. I met the CEO, and he showed
into colorful self-help mantras. “When me love. But I was just being myself on
you read the book, you’ll see the whole Snapchat, and it ended up connecting.
process of my keys,” says Khaled, from That’s beautiful, because people used
his tour bus in Colorado. “The process to only know me for putting out hot re-
to progress.” cords.
You write in the book about stiffing
Last month, you went so far as to landlords on rent during hard times.
stream the birth of your first child on Were you a “they” to them?
Snapchat, although you ultimately kept Not at all. Because I never dissed no-
him offscreen. Why did you draw the body. If I couldn’t pay my rent or I got
line there? kicked out, all I did was move forward.
He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever That’s not being a “they.” That’s actual-
seen. I want to get with my queen and ly being great.
put him in his nice Air Jordans and be You also talk a lot about chasing bigger
properly dressed before I send a picture things constantly. But can’t endlessly
out to the world. I can’t wait for you to chasing success become its own prison?
see him – to show you an icon. Right Success is not just money. It’s giving
now, I’m on tour, and he’s in a secret lo- thanks every day. You could have the
cation – an iconic secret location. He’s worst day ever and you could go, “Let me
real cool. He’s a young don. chill and say, ‘What am I tripping about?
Was your fiancee always on board with I have life! Everything’s gonna be all
you broadcasting her labor? right!’ ” That’s why, on Snapchat, I show
I always said that if the doctor says myself watering my grass so it goes from
it’s OK to Snapchat the birth, I’m brown to green, caring for it. I’ve been
DJ
gonna do it. I wanted to do it in a re- caring for myself a lot lately: I meditate,
spectful manner. My whole thing was I pray, I’m in the jacuzzi.
to put love out through the universe. How does your Muslim faith guide your
It’s hard times in the world right now: daily life?
Khaled
Sometimes you need to be touched by It would take me 40 years to tell you
blessings like that. everything I pray about because I pray
Did you play your son music while he almost every second of the day. It’s the
was in the womb? way I was brought up, and it keeps a
All the time. I would play him Mi- shield around me.
chael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, my album Your parents are Palestinian immigrants.
Major Key – beautiful music that’s time- The hitmaking producer This year, anti-Muslim racism in the
less. I even played some music during
the birth. That’s when he really started
on becoming a U.S. has gotten seemingly worse
than ever. Do you have fears about
coming out! motivational icon, raising a Muslim-American child in
You use the word “they” to describe Snapchatting the this climate?
CLAY PATRICK MCBRIDE
negative, success-sabotaging people. We’re good people, and we don’t en-

What makes someone a “they”? birth of his son and the tertain ignorance. It’s the same as stay-
“They” is an energy that I suggest
nobody ever entertain. One thing I’ve
importance of self-care ing away from “they” – stay away from
that ignorance. Love is the most power-
learned about success and being a great BY JONA H W E I N E R ful thing in the world.
26| R ol l i n g S t o n e | rollingstoneindia.com Ja n u a r y 2 017

METAL WIRE
METAL MATTERS
Katatonia will play at
Indian Institute of
Technology—
Madras’s annual
cultural festival
Saarang in Chennai
Katatonia
to have a thought behind every new move
you make,” he says. Plus, for the rest of us
outside Europe, there’s the fascination that
some of the world’s most developed coun-
tries like Sweden and Norway can often pro-
Back in India
duce the best downhearted music. Renkse
says, “I personally think it’s the weather and
the nature here that is planting the seeds of
melancholy.”
Katatonia are bringing that melan-
choly to India once again, performing their
Swedish metallers for 25 years, they went into the studio to second show in the country on January
record their 10th album The Fall of Hearts 7th as part of the Indian Institute of Tech-
Katatonia’s vocalist with limited booked hours. The budgets, as nology —Madras’s annual cultural festival
Jonas Renkse talks guitarist Anders Nyström mentioned in
previous interviews, were also restrained.
Saarang in Chennai. Interestingly, their
India debut in 2010 also came at an IIT,
about returning to But Renkse sees it another way. “It’s always performing in Mumbai. Renkse recalls their
India, celebrating 25 good to feel a healthy dose of time pressure,
otherwise you get lazy. But I will never com-
first taste of India as “exciting, exotic and a
special moment.” He adds, “I think the whole
years together as a promise with the final result because of experience was a standout moment, albeit a
financial limits or time restraints. Things very brief one. I hope to have the chance to
band, and more have to work out and match our vision, oth- see a little bit more this time.” With a setlist
erwise it’s pointless to even start.” that will include most of The Fall of Hearts
I
t’s been a hectic time leading up to The results are there to see, of course. and their favorites such as “My Twin,” “July”
the Christmas break for vocalist Jonas The Fall of Hearts, which released in May and “Dead Letters.” Renkse says their sec-
Renkse. Not only was he fronting via Peaceville records, was the moody, ond sojourn to India should be a little more
Swedish prog metal band Katatonia melodic prog that is signature Katato- relaxed. Coming in from a show in Dubai
on their Australia tour until December nia, even if it has moved them far away on January 5th, the vocalist adds, “We have
11th, he also jumped straight into a special from their death/doom metal beginnings. a little more time on our hands on this run,
show with his side project, death metallers What remains is the sprawling, eerie sound. so I hope to see at least something more
Bloodbath, playing bass at the Black Christ- Renkse explains that they don’t just talk than a hotel and a stage.” When asked if he
mas Festival in Sweden the same week. about moving out of comfort zones as a has any plans apart from the show, Renkse
ESTER SEGARRA
But the pressures—of the road or even clichéd interview response. They really mean says, “I am not yet sure what it could be;
in the studio—is something that Katato- it. “Comfort zones are made to be broken, I am open for anything as long as it’s not too
nia don’t lament. Despite being around but not just for the sake of it. It’s important dangerous!” ANURAG TAGAT
METAL WIRE
Plague Throat Pose a Paradox

Shillong death metallers’ frontman Nangsan Lyngwa on their debut
full-length album ‘The Human Paradox’
“I
t’s funny, this album has survived comes first... and I can’t be pointing fin-
earthquakes and power cuts,” gers at anyone,” says Lyngwa. With session
laughs guitarist-growler Nang- bassist Jerry Nelson Ranee (guitarist for
san Lyngwa, while talking about Shillong metallers Aberrant) on board, the
his death metal band Plague Throat’s long- band will release the 10-track album in
awaited debut full-length, The Human Par- January via Transcending Obscurity India
adox. He recalls when they felt the tremors, (moving from their existing label Incanned
drummer Malice aka Dolreich Bianglang Productions) with a possible tour in Feb-
Kharmawphlang was recording with pro- ruary. The Human Paradox covers Plague
ducer Ashwin Shriyan (the Mumbai bass- Throat’s earliest material and the latest.
ist had flown down from Mumbai) at the Although Lyngwa also tracked bass parts
band’s home studio. “They were tracking the despite having a perfectly capable producer-
last section and had to run out of the house. bassist like Shriyan helping with the album,
I asked Ashwin if he’d saved the session and there is one guest featured on the album—
he said he hadn’t, so we had to redo it.” “Conception Subjection” includes a guitar
There’s a certain bemusement in Lyngwa’s solo from former Demonic Resurrection gui-
voice; he can always start a sentence in a TAKE TWO tarist Daniel Kenneth Rego.
somber tone even if he wants to say some- Nangsan Lyngwa (left) and Malice The Malice-penned “Ma Nga” originated
thing funny. Perhaps that’s what is pretty in 2006, before the band’s current ava-
death metal about him and Plague Throat. East to play across the major metros and a tar, and the album also features pound-
They can joke about how an earthquake performance at Wacken Open Air in Ger- ing death metal early cuts such as “Domin-
played spoilsport during one tracking ses- many in 2014, Plague Throat is putting a ion Breach,” their first single “Inherited
sion, when the damage could have been rough year behind them. Their bassist Iaid- Failure” which Lyngwa wrote overnight,
much worse. on Jyrwa was out of the band owing to per- and “Conflict Resolution,” which is an all-
For a band that’s been around since 2008 sonal reasons in May. Then, in August, the out razor-sharp riff fest. “People always say
and started seeing much more approval band called for a “long term hiatus” while death metal guitarists don’t do much, so I
after their debut EP An Exordium to Con- promising that they will release The Human thought I’d do this and see what people say,”
tagion (2013), breaking out of the North Paradox. “What matters is that the music Lyngwa says. ANURAG TAGAT
DIARY OF A MADMAN #6
Concept albums
rewarded with a smattering of the Gone are the days of actual be imagined in the classic era of
following words and phrases- ‘it’s storytelling through music. Today, ‘concept albums’; there’s such
without concepts
about a struggle’, ‘it’s about dis- bands decide that they’re writing poverty of thought in the realm of
covery’, ‘it’s about spiritual awak- a concept album, before they have storytelling.
ening’, ‘it’s about inner demons’. a concept in mind. And this is not Of course, there are exceptions.
Today, bands decide that they’re If you have the time and patience, just a local phenomenon. But, a In our country alone, Bhayanak
writing a concept album before
you can probably create an instant worldwide epidemic. Maut, Heathen Beast and Gaia’s
they have a concept in mind!
Dr.Hex calls their bluff ‘concept album word generator’ And then, they have the gall Throne (and some other bands
and write an album that’s at par to say, ‘Hey man, it’s metal… too) masterfully tell stories
In 2016, there’s a lot of things out with the mediocrity that comes nobody cares about the lyrics through metal and ensure there’s
there that I don’t like. Prisma, for out these days. anyway!’. Ever wondered why it a beautiful synergy between music
example. Why one would want to is so? Maybe because there’s so and thought. I urge other bands
look like he/she has been crafted Dr. Hex little emphasis given to the lyrical across the world to follow in their
out of molten lava is beyond me. content that people have, over footsteps, and if they decide to
EMBOR SAYO (PLAGUE THROAT); SAGNIK KARMARKAR (DR. HEX)
People who say the record indus- time, just stopped paying atten- write a concept album; work just
try is stronger than it has ever tion? Maybe because there’s so as hard on their storytelling as
been, also. You already read about little synergy between lyrics and their music. I get paid to preach
that in my last piece. But of late, music these days that it’s probably and so I will. It will not only enrich
something that has traditionally painful to sit with the lyric-booklet the experience of your fans, but
always been close to my heart, open in front of you? Maybe also your own.
has become a topic of discomfort because there’s probably more And if you cannot, just write a
to me. In the year 2016, I look the cohesiveness of thought in this normal album goddamit!
other way when I hear the term article, evewn though I’m paid to
‘concept album’. write like I’m insane and incoher- Riju Dasgupta does not exist.
Here’s a fun activity for you. ent, than most concept albums The writer of this piece is an
Meet your local band that’s released these days? In fact, I’m illusion created by mad scientist
currently working on their latest aghast that in this era of technical Dr. Hex, who makes it seem like
concept album and ask them wizardry, where people do things he plays bass for Albatross
what it is about. You’ll certainly be on their instruments that couldn’t and Primitiv.
ALBUMS of the YEAR
10ALBUMS BEST INDIAN

Sandunes surprises; Kryptos get psychedelic;
Donn Bhat bridges sonic borders
1 Sandunes
Downstream
Mumba i producer Sa naya

Ardeshir aka Sandunes’s 2016
relea se Dow nstream tests
her own capacity for musical
mischief. Somewhere between
the delicious synths, blips,
glitches and chimes on the
10-track record, you can see
that Ardeshir has really learnt
to take it easy. And with the
kind of creatively secure music
space she is in right now
(carefully picked gigs, surprising
collabs etc) she has no points
to prove either. Except how
electronically agile she is, of
course.
2 Donn Bhat
Connected
Mumbai g uitar ist/produc-

er Donn Bhat’s latest record
is a remarkably compatible
marriage between his ‘live’
a n d ‘e l e c t r o n i c ’ v i s i o n s .
Connected is as much about
anticipative guitars and synths
as it is about lyricism and so-
cial commentary, and in being
that, it exemplifies the com-
mon saying among old-tim-
ers: that ‘a good song is good
song’, to hell w ith genres.
Bhat’s production on his third
solo record is crisp and song-
w riting contemporar y.A nd
with help from collaborators
JISHNU CHAKRABORTY
like vocalist Toymob and sa-

rangi player Suhail Yusuf Khan,
Sandunes he’s managed to make an album
that was perhaps played on
ALBUMS of the YEAR
loop the most among Indian as the familiarly-infectious “Dis- band—which a lso consists in a mere one-and-a-half days at
indie music-lovers this year. course! Discourse!” of guitarits Hartej Sawhney, Mumbai’s Cotton Press Studios.
Siddharth Talwar, bassist Zubin
Bhathena and drummer Josh-
ua Singh—further highlight-
ed the story behind the album
with detailed visuals and art-
work by photographer Parizad
D. at their live shows during
their promotion tour last year.
The Bodhisattwa
3 Trio
9 What Escapes Me
5
Heart of Darkness
Kryptos Egress Point
Burn Up the Night
It comes across at first as an over-
used pop culture reference to Metal in Kolkata is seeing vis-
Joseph Conrad’s modern novel- Bengaluru’s old school metallers ible signs of recovery, and this
la and its film adaptation, the trade in stories about myth- year belonged to What Escapes
cult hit Apocalypse Now!, but ic beings for something much Me’s arresting debut full-length.
Kolkata experimental jazz rock more real—the leather-clad, fist- It’s not just djent, because the
band The Bodhisattwa Trio pumping ethos of the Seventies Sanjay Divecha band navigates everything from
only go as far as to use a sin-
gle voice sample from the Bran-
do-starrer (the uneasy piano-
and Eighties. Sonically, Burn Up
the Night places Kryptos in a
space that’s as glorious as they
7 and Secret
Secret
sarangi (“Coalesce”) and tabla
(“The Truth Of a Lie”) sections
to gimmick-free technically as-
led “Defeat”) on their second may ever be. From the incen- One of India’s most prodigious tounding metal. You can tell
album. Everything else is an diary guitar lines (“Full Throt- guitarists, Sanjay Divecha’s they’ve got some early materia,
eerie, lo-fi sonic snapshot of tle”) from Rohit Chaturvedi album Secret combines different but they’re not afraid to share it
what happens when a troubled that are burnt into memory and musical streams that sit together proudly, whether it’s the metalc-
(but genius) guitarist’s mind vocalist Nolan Lewis’s snarling perfectly. The standout sound on ore-edged “Pseudo Showcase” or
traverses murky waters of call to carpe diem (“One Shot to the album is Divecha’s own wiz- prog-drawing on “Maze of Mu-
introspection. Kill”), it’s not very often you’ll ardry on the guitar. The musi- tual Apocalypse.”
see someone as stubborn on their cian shares the rest of the space
principles as Kryptos turn to on the album with his talented
psychedelic-meets-traditional musical colleagues such as vo-
heavy metal. calist Chandana Bala Kalyan,
pianist Louiz Banks, horn play-
ers Shirish Malhotra and Kishor
Sodha, among others.
10 SundogProject
Tora
4 The Circus
With Love
6 Spud In The Box
Lead Feet Paper Shoes
New Delhi experimental/elec-
tronic act SundogProject’s
In seven tracks, New Delhi The Kush sophomore offering Tora fea-
ex per imenta l rockers The
Circus spring back in form with
their third album, by when most
The Mumbai alt rockers shook
the indie music scene earlier this
year with the release of their
8 Upadhyay Group
Perspective
tures an ethereal mix of indus-
trial, darkwave, ambient and
rock elements. From the glim-
bands have all but given up. If debut album Lead Feet Paper At 19, guitarist Kush Upadhy- mering “Bloom” to the hyper
Bats was a frenzied, unpredict- Shoes. From the immersive intro ay is already a session guitarist “Disk” and the ominous “Vajra,”
able attack, With Love is a much “Drown In” to the deceptively for some of music circuit’s most principal songwriter Rahul
more studied approach to con- cheerful “Institute of Madness” popular names. After releasing Das (joined by Shardul Mehta,
structing a sonic bubble that and the powerful “Hold Your his debut EP Songs In The Key Abhinav Chaudary and Ak-
keeps you engrossed throughout Horses Closer,” the metamorphic Of EP in 2015, Upadhyay rele- shat Taneja) presented a jour-
—from the quiet of “I Don’t Care album oscillates from mellow to assed Perspective in 2016. The ney through time, space and
Anymore For You” to quaking manic, courtesy a combination new record furthers Upadhyay’s everything in between.
tunes like “Not Yet Dinosaurs” of powerful lyricism and the two signature sonic blend of blues,
and “Lions and Wolves” as well vocalists—A nkit Dayal and jazz and rock. Apparently, the (Releases are listed in no
Roha n R aja d hya k sha . The five-track album was recorded particular order)
EPs of the YEAR
10 BEST EPs
across the country for nearly
eight years, Mumbai-based sing-
er-songwriter Vernon Noronha
released his debut EP Closer To
Home this past February. The
EP explores well-founded expe-
riences, Noronha’s laid-back vo-
Your Chin sticks to his guns; Unohu get political; cals and pleasant guitar work all
Godless’ ruthless debut wrapped in warm emotions that
take you back home.
Underground
1 Authority
‘Propaगेंडा’
5 Paraphoniks
Yarns
Politically charged and lyrical-
ly outspoken, Kolkata rap rock Mu mba i-ba sed s y nt h duo
band Underground Authority’s Shatrunjai Dewan and Sid
EP Propaगेंडा could well be the Shirodkar aka Paraphoniks
soundtrack to the tumultuous dove deep into retro-futur-
year that was 2016. A bit of a ism on Yarns, exploring space-
melting point (the band experi- age sound effects and smooth
ment with rock, ballad-y strings, Eighties-esque synth in de-
reggae and two languages) the tail. The EP features a myri-
EP stands out for its raw ener- ad of tones that range from ga-
gy and raptivism. This is the lactic conquest (“Frissions”) to
band’s —comprising vocalist video game soundtrack (“Poly-
‘EPR’ Iyer, guitarist Adil Rashid, Your Chin math”) and ambient lounge
drummer Sourish Kumar and (“Blue Shift,”) offering a unique
bassist Soumyadeep Bhat- exploration of the capabilities
tacharya—second record and def- only to Tewari: no-nonsense upon different lyrical themes of modular synth.
initely their more impressive one. grooves, oddball songwrit- and there is a common strain
ing metaphors (“Slowly/Ma- of political consciousness run-
chines retaliate/Get Your Pea- ning through them. “Incog-
nuts Out and Wait”) and the nito” and “Call My Name” ex-
just-woke-up staccato vocals. press how one cannot afford to be
faceless and nameless in a coun-
try that’s bursting with people.
6
The Hoodwink
Circle
With The Flow
2 Your Chin
Peeping Till It’s Noise
Although it took The Hood-
Mumbai producer Raxit Tewari

brings his familiar drawl and
3 Unohu
Babel
wink Circle four years to re-
lease their debut EP, it proved
to be well worth the wait. The
COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS
4
playful electro-pop on his third Babel is the follow-up to alt rock Mumbai alternative rock band
EP. If his first two records saw band Unohu’s debut EP Asun- Vernon Noronha combined old-school rock,
Closer To Home
him experimenting and discov- der which released in 2014. The funk and metal on With The
ering his newfound sonic space, members say that it has turned Flow, drawing inspiration from
Peeping Till It’s Noise proud- out just the way they wanted. After writing and perform- various situations around them
ly boasts skills that are unique All four songs on Babel touch ing songs at festivals and clubs for lyrics. The compositions
EPs of the YEAR
range from a song about a bike you wince and smile more than upon all things brutal, from allers Behemoth. One spin of
(“Suzanna”) to the Indian ed- hearing Govindraju’s most un- Eighties horror (“Civic TV”), riff-busters like “Ossuary” and
ucation system (“Failure”) to forgiving, guttural squeals set mental disorders (“Disorder”) “Replicant,” and it’s safe to say
punctuality (“Late”) and more. to mosh-mobilizing riffs. Tech- and manga/anime (“Migrate”). that Godless are just as ruthless
Frontman Aidan Lewis’ vocals death, slam and a hint of prog as the past year has been.
channel Eddie Vedder at points permeate on songs like “Focus
while guitarist Sanju Aguiar, 22” and “Severe Comorbidity.”
bassist Ishaan Krishna and
drummer Rahul Hariharan de-
liver dynamic and powerful
performances.
9 Godless
Centuries of Decadence
10 Death by Fungi
8 Orchid
Orchid
Hyderabad’s newest, most bru-
In Dearth Of
tal band sees members of metal Mumbai hardcore trio Death

Benga lur u’s mind-bending acts Eccentric Pendulum, Or- By Fungi made their mark this
7
metallers Orchid seem to be chid, Skrypt and Shock Ther- year under just 11 minutes—In
Wired Anxiety all about measure. On their apy combine forces to debut Dearth Of wastes no time in
The Delirium of
Negation long overdue debut EP, they with epic, skull-crushing death unleashing sonic chaos that’s
make their menacing pres- metal that challenges the mal- as groovy as it is grimy. Wheth-
ence known, alongside their adies of modern society—and er it’s the fuzzed-out aggressive-
It’s been a good year for death avant-garde alter-ego, writing your capacity for some seri- ness of “Black Lung,” the frenet-
metal, and even the (now) off- two-faced songs that sway be- ous sonic assault. Within half ic riff-work of “Pathfinder,” the
shore outfit of Wired Anxiety tween pulverizing prog death a year of its release, the four- seething vengeance of “Iced,” or
(with guitarist Naval Katoch and eerie jazz-influenced inter- track Centuries of Decadence the punk-nodding freedom of
and vocalist Dheeraj Govin- ludes (“Venusian Death”). It’s has already earned Godless gigs “Endless Rain,” Death By Fungi
draju based in the U.S.) have just a taste, but one that’s one across the country, and a slot keep it rolling with a stabbing
been able to stomp down with of the most intriguing metal on homeground festival Dec- angularity that’s all killer and
brutal intent. Nothing makes releases of the year, touching can Rock alongside Polish met- no filler.
Orchid
SINGLES of the YEAR
10SINGLES BEST
sis on Divine’s verse delivery.
The lyrics themselves highlight
the power of hard work and de-
termination, hailing those who
are fighting their dire situations
to achieve success in the urban
jungle as soldiers.
Skyhabor’s poignant prog; Divine’s subaltern sass;

Hindi funk-rock courtesy Ananthaal
Skyhabor
4 GingerFeet
“Make Your Stand’
If you’re running short of some

#MondayMotivation—or any
day of the week, really—look no
further than GingerFeet’s inspi-
rational headbanger. The Kolka-
ta/Mumbai-based funk rock act
keep it simple and hard-hitting
with the lyrics (“You know we
can’t get it all/But we still got to
try”), but it’s the groovy riffs and
busting falsettos that promise to
get you on your feet and make
your stand.
this standout track penned by

Amitabh Bhattacharya.
5 Mali
‘Dreaming’
1 Afterglow
‘From Shadows
To The Stars’
2 Ananthaal
‘Haal-E-Dil’
Mumbai-based singer-song-
writer Mali’s single “Dreaming”
invokes many of her childhood
Who says Urdu poetry can’t experiences—the people she
“From Shadows To The Stars”
by New Delhi-based jazz/funk
band Afterglow is dedicated to
glide on jazz-funk riffs? Mumbai
fusion trio Ananthaal’s second
single “Haal-E-Dil” (off their
3 Divine
‘Jungli Sher’
met and the way she felt about
them. It is the story of a boy,
her alter ego, who is growing
the people that face caste dis- eponymous debut album) is “Jungli Sher” is a ferocious and up. The single was recorded at
crimination everyday. Filled proof that if there ever were any gritty outline of Vivian Fer- Mumbai’s Cotton Press Studio
with tempo changes, the song rules for music-and-lyrics pair- nandes aka Divine’s journey from with Stuart DaCosta on bass,
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
has brilliant dynamics that run ings, they need to be broken the slums of Mumbai to becom- Jehangir Jehangir on drums
right through it. Clarinet play- pronto. Watch out for composer ing a leading rapper in the Indi- and Tejas Menon on guitar. Je-
er Rie Ona’s solos carries the Clinton Cerejo and vocalists Bi- an hip-hop scene. The beat stays hangir and Menon are also pro-
song extremely well, leading the anca Gomes and Vijay Prakash’s simple with monotone percus- ducers on the track.
track just like a vocal melody. delightful idiosyncrasies on sion and bass, putting empha-
SINGLES of the YEAR
Ananthaal
7
America tour. If Emery had to ring. While most of the sev-
Reverrse Polarity prove himself as Dan Tomp- en-track release addresses the
‘Suck On These!!!’
kins’ stand-in, this one sealed tumult of relationships, the
it—emoting like the best in the equally angsty riff-rager “Lions
Is it a comeback? Is it a one-off? business, triumphant chorus- and Wolves” is an exceptional
Is it a much-needed release from es and all. It helps that the song ode to Game of Thrones.
one of the most playful bands in sits just right with the band’s
the country? The Mumbai hard- poignant prog that can earn a
core/prog band turn to rap and nod from the djent, rock and
6
grime a la UK act Hacktivist, but metal faithful.
Prateek Kuhad add their own grooves that can
‘Tune Kaha’
make you smile as you headbang.
Of course it’s got a fully ribald
With fans comparing him to title, because you can’t expect
Western artists like James Bay, anything else from a band that
Ed Sheeran and Ben Howard, still champions a song called
New Delhi singer-songwrit- “Johnny Horny.”
10 The F16s
er Prateek Kuhad has made a
considerable impact in the In-
‘Cannibal Life II’
dian independent music scene
with his brand of acoustic pop.
9
The light-hearted “Tune Kaha” Chennai alt rockers The F16s
woos you instantly with its The Circus have painted quite the can-
‘Lions & Wolves’
heartwarming strumming and vas on their much-awaited
lyrics about young love. debut album Triggerpunkte .
Ne w D el h i-ba se d e x p er i- And while overall the album
mental rock act The Circus is a bright collection of groovy,
8
brought heady synths, slow chill pop rock (the guitars some-
Skyharbor grooves and an air of inten- times even harking back to the
‘Blind Side’
sit y on their third studio glorious Eighties) “Cannibal
album—With Lov e sees the Life II,” like perhaps a couple
They tested the waters with their four member act (compris- of other tracks, invokes a deep
RON BEZBARUAH
second Eric Emery-sung track ing members of FuzzCulture, sense of melancholia packaged
late last year, but the real deal Curtain Blue and Ioish) craft in complex rhythms and plain-
was released with a music video seven tracks of metal-lean- tive wails. Quite the stunner,
following their gruelling North ing, moody electro rock to the this one.
VIDEOS of the YEAR
10VIDEOS
ist Ritwik De is the hapless pro-
BEST
tagonist caught in the middle of
it all, there’s Adityan Nair (from
fellow psychedelic rock band The
Urban EarlyMen) as a no-fucks-
given rickshaw driver who gets
our vote.
4 Monica Dogra
‘Shiver’
Parekh & Singh get vibrant; Monica Dogra’s art deco
project; Vernon Noronha’s moving tribute With the video for “Shiver,” sing-
er-songwriter Monica Dogra
takes the audience into an al-
ternative dimension within an
Mindflew’s ‘O Beti’ old, art deco theater. Featuring a
myriad of surreal characters and
crisp cinematography, the video
follows dancer and actor Resh-
ma Gajjar as she alternates be-
tween two personas: a curious
outsider versus a performer who
seems to be the star of the pecu-
liar troupe. Set against a combi-
nation of stripped-down synth,
spoken word poetry and Dogra’s
whispery vocals, “Shiver” evokes
nostalgia and decadence.
5 Paradigm Shift
‘Banjaara’
ager Sahej Umang Singh Bhatia Paradigm Shift’s dark video
1 Dualist Inquiry
‘Violet’
(and a cameo by Menwhopause)
and directed by Haider Hus-
sain Beig, “On a Boat” showcas-
3 Mindflew
‘O Beti’
for “Banjaara” pack in clouds
of floating ink, planetary bod-
ies and disturbing facial defor-
Turns out dreams make the es the once hipster district at its Through the lens of filmmak- mations on the almost-seven-
best music videos. The video claustrophobic, seediest, dank er Tushar Prakash, New Delhi minute-long song. The Mumbai
for New Delhi producer Sahej best—drugs, surreal frames psych rockers Mindf lew pres- prog/fusion rock band step away
Bakshi aka Dualist Inquiry’s and the reminder that once ent their own parallel universe, from their previous live per-
latest single “Violet” off his sec- you’re in too deep, there’s no one that includes mad scientists formances and playthroughs
ond album Dreamcatcher is a escaping HKV. Let’s not forget and mob bosses in a drug deal towards a stor yline that is
curious narrative of recollec- this is easily the darkest party gone wrong, set to kaleidoscop- about how people get inf lu-
tions of his dreams, with all anthem you’ll hear this year. ic rock. While vocalist-guitar- enced by external things in life
the bizarreness that the latter
tend to bring: waking up in a
derelict bedroom, encounter- ‘Shiver’ by Monica Dogra
ing faceless school girls in the
other room etc. Directed by the
indie favorite Misha Ghose,
“Violet” is both visually artic-
ulate and perplexing.
2 Menwhopause
‘On a Boat’
Hauz Khas Village is not a nice

place by night. Or, if you were
New Delhi rock band Menwho-
pause, it’s the best goddamn
place for a bender to love bend-
ers. Featuring the band’s man-
VIDEOS of the YEAR
Parekh & Singh in ‘I Love

You Baby, I Love You Doll’
9
and lose track of what they are even earned a nod of approval ba ssist Roha n Ku lsh re st-
meant to do. from the American film auteur ha , g uitarist K ar tik Pillai Skyharbor
‘Chemical Hands’
himself. and drummer Karan Singh—
6
also make an appearance as
Parekh & Singh mourners. India’s (arguably) biggest metal
7
‘I Love You Baby, Peter Cat export returned this year with
I Love You Doll’ Recording Co.
8
‘I’m Home’ a country-wide tour, news of a
Roshni Baptist new album and a sci-fi heavy,
‘Butterfly’
The country’s favorite dream post-apocalyptic prog metal
pop duo suit up and mellow The New Delhi psychedelic rock ballad. In between shots of the
down in this folksy serenade band’s video for “I’m Home” fol- Mumbai singer-song w r iter Indian/American act working
from the 2013 album Ocean lows the journey of Death (por- Roshni Baptist’s second sin- their instruments, the video
(originally put out under only trayed by frontman Suryakant gle “Butterfly” carries the mu- for “Chemical Hands” rolls out
g uit a r ist-voc a list Nischay Sawhney) as he crosses the Great sical crux of her debut album highly saturated, constellation-
Parekh’s name). Ahead of re- Wall of China and makes his Unbound: freedom and self- speckled clips of deserted fac-
cord’s the re-release on UK label way to a cremation to ‘collect’ discovery. The video picturizes tories, fiery explosions and bar-
Peacefrog Records, “I Love You the soul of a woman in a red sari the message beautifully around ren lands—all signaling that
Baby, I Love You Doll” sees (New Delhi-based filmmaker the character of a (male) ballet we’re “Deprived of all senses/
Parekh and drummer Jivraj Surabhi Tandon.) Set entirely dancer ambitiously chasing his Embrace the nothingness.”
Singh traverse a quaint man- in slow motion, the video com- dream despite adversity. The
10 Vernon
sion, old letters and a lush, plements Sawnhey’s deep, re- video plays with shadow and
green landscape in a Wes An- laxed timbre and hazy vibe of light to create multiple moods, Noronha
derson-inspired clip, which the track. The rest of the band— much like the track itself.
‘ Come Back Jack’
‘I’m Home’ by “Come Back Jack” reimagines

Peter Cat Recording Co. Noronha’s own experience of his
father going missing in 2013. He
began writing it when he finally
came to terms with the loss. The
black&white video featuring
some stellar actors also high-
lights reasons of his father’s dis-
appearance.
— C ompi le d by Ni r m i k a
Singh, Anurag Tagat, Nabeela
Shaikh, Riddhi Chakraborty
and David Britto
38 | R ol l i n g S t o n e | rollingstoneindia.com Ja n ua r y 2 017
Back
to the
Blues
After an 11-year wait, the Rolling
Stones recorded a new album in
three days. Inside their roots
revival and bright future
BY BR I A N HI AT T
ROCKS OFF Rolling Stones

performing at Montevideo,
Uruguay in February
No v e m b e r 2 01 5 rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 39
BACK TO
S
THE BLUES
eptember 1965. charlie watts steps to a mi- The freakiest thing about Blue & Lone-
some is the extent to which Jagger and Rich-
crophone in a smart sport jacket, introducing “one of ards agree on it. The two men, currently in
our favorite numbers” to a packed Dublin theater. The their fourth year of détente after some caus-
tic bits in Richards’ autobiography near-
24-year-old drummer heads back to his modest kit, ly derailed a 50th-anniversary reunion, are
both genuinely excited about the roots re-
and the Rolling Stones tumble into Howlin’ Wolf’s vival. The project might, from the outside,
seem more like a Richards thing, the kind
“Little Red Rooster,” Keith Richards’ duh-dunt-dah- of retro move he’d favor, while the Jagger
of fans’ imaginations would be busy push-
duh riff battling Brian Jones’ spiky slide-guitar runs.
ing the Stones to work with, say, the Chain-
And a thousand Irish teenage girls greet each Chess Records guitar stab smokers. The frontman says the stereo-
type isn’t all wrong, but that in this case,
with crescendoing, this-song-is-so-fab shrieks. (Later, the audience will “we were all equally into it. I was as into it
as anyone.”
embark on an actual riot, storming the stage, which just makes it a typ- “This is the best record Mick Jagger has
ever made,” says Richards, always a fan of
ical Stones tour stop.) Jagger’s emotive harmonica playing, which
flourishes on the new LP. “It was just watch-
Ten months earlier, the band had some- Now, the Stones have circled back to the ing the guy enjoying doing what he really
how managed to push that raw take on 12- blues, with Blue & Lonesome, a (mostly) can do better than anybody else.” He pauses.
bar Chicago blues atop the U.K. singles live-in-the-studio collection of 12 songs “And also, the band ain’t too shabby.”
chart (though U.S. radio refused to play it, originally performed by the likes of Lit- Even after their early flurry of covers sub-
suspecting that the lyrics’ prowling rooster tle Walter, Jimmy Reed and, again, How- sided, the Stones never stopped playing old
was not, in fact, a bird). “Little Red Roost- lin’ Wolf. It’s the first Stones album to have blues tunes, both onstage and, especially, in
er” is apparently still the only traditional zero Jagger-Richards originals; even their rehearsals. The 200 hours of Exile on Main
blues ever to hit Number One in the U.K. debut had a couple of attempts at songwrit- Street sessions, for instance, were punctuat-
“It’s crackers,” Mick Jagger says five decades ing. Recording Blue & Lonesome was easy – ed by repeated attempts at covers, meant to
later, on a late-October day in Manhattan, it took all of three days. “It made itself,” says clear the air between the midwifing of new
pondering that achievement, recall- songs. Two of them – Slim
ing those screams. He laughs. “You Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips”
know, it’s crazy. I mean, that was and Robert Johnson’s “Stop
a weirdo thing, ’cause we could’ve Breakin’ Down Blues” – made
done anything at that time and it the 1972 album. (“It’s like gin-
would’ve been Number One. That “This is the best record Mick ger at a sushi restaurant,” says
was the point.” He’s wearing a white Blue & Lonesome co-produc-
button-front shirt with a subtle blue Jagger has ever made,” says er Don Was. “You cleanse the
pattern and teensy black trousers
that are probably the same waist size Richards. “Also, the band palate.”)
In 1968, Jagger told Roll-
as his checkered pants on that Irish
stage 51 years back. He looks his age,
ain’t too shabby.” ing Stone that the band had
always intended to move be-
sort of, except not at all. yond the blues. “What’s the
As with all the Stones’ early blues point in listening to us doing
recordings, Jagger says that “Red ‘I’m a King Bee,’ ” he said,
Rooster” was done “out of love.” “We were Richards. As Ronnie Wood points out, how- “when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?”
kids,” he says, “and we were proselytizing. ever, it’s also the product of “a lifetime’s re- But at their best, the Stones weren’t merely
The Beatles, to some extent, did the same search, really.” mimicking their inspirations. They weren’t
– they talked about the music they loved, Figuring out when and how to release it purists, except maybe for Jones; blues fans
which was always, like, soul music.” The was trickier. “I’m saying to the record com- looked askance at them for playing Chuck
Stones’ music was rooted more firmly in pany,” says Jagger, “ ‘Can you make this pop Berry tunes at their early gigs. Among ear-
their inf luences, however, and they went music if you want? Is it marketable?’ ” The ly-Sixties R&B hipsters in London, “it was
further in honoring them. In May of ’65, album came out of sessions that were sup- always that sort of reverse psychology,” says
they strong-armed the U.S. teen TV show posed to be for an LP of Stones originals, Richards. “Anybody who had a hit record
Shindig! into hosting Howlin’ Wolf himself, still in its early stages. Jagger wondered was a piece of shit.”
PREVIOUS SPREAD: NEWZULU/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
with the Stones sitting at the besuited, six- whether they should wait to get that one fin- “You were kind of forced into a purist
foot-three, 275-pound 55-year-old’s feet as ished, maybe release them together. style because you wouldn’t get booked if
he bellowed “How Many More Years,” jump- But then again, the last time the Stones you were a rock band,” Jagger recalls. “So
ing in place and eliciting some improbable managed to finish a studio album was back we made out we were blues purists to get
adolescent shrieks in his own right. “When in 2005, with A Bigger Bang. “The record booked. The reality is, in rehearsal we would
those blues records came out,” says Jagger, company probably said, ‘Well, the other play anything – Ritchie Valens and Buddy
“they were, in a sense, for their audience, one’s never gonna come,’ ” Jagger says, twist- Holly.”
pop music. They would play it like we would ing those lips of his into an outsize grin. That irreverence made their take on the
play Kendrick Lamar. To me, take away the “ ‘We might as well put this one out.’ I don’t blues matter. Their frantic, hand-clappy
genres for a minute and it’s all pop music.” blame ’em. I probably would have done the 1964 version of Muddy Waters’ “I Just Want
same thing. ’Cause, ‘Now I got something, to Make Love to You” owed a lot of its ap-
Senior writer Bria n Hiatt interviewed might as well put it out.’ ” proach to Bo Diddley, a fresh mixture that
Bruce Springsteen in October.
helped birth garage rock. The Stones didn’t First impression is obeying and there’s something happening
get the “Red Rooster” riff right, either, play- At their first TV appearance on Ready Steady – a sound is happening and it was so good.”
ing it more like Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Go, performing “Come On,” August, 1963 One of those two takes ended up on the
Boy,” while also drawing from Sam Cooke’s album, and it’s extraordinary, with Wood
sleek 1963 soul version. (Eric Clapton re- very eclectic album,” he says. “I hope some of playing frantic lead; Richards hitting huge,
called Howlin’ Wolf taking pains to teach it’s gonna be recognizable Stones and some doom-y chords; Watts nailing the original
him the original version when they rere- of it’s gonna be some Stones you never heard track’s regally restrained drum part; and
corded it for 1971’s The London Howlin’ before, maybe.” Jagger digging deep on his harp when he’s
Wolf Sessions, with the older man telling Knopfler’s studio is gorgeous, equipped not delivering one of the least-mannered vo-
him, “It doesn’t go like anything you think with an ideal mix of vintage and modern cals of his career. “Baby, please, come back
it goes like.”) equipment, with high ceilings and gleam- to me,” he pleads. Afterward, Jagger – who
And in 2016, Jagger is finally ready to ing blond-wood floors. It was also a total- says he had already been pondering a Stones
concede that the Rolling Stones have some- ly alien environment for the Stones. “I know blues album – surprised everyone by calling
thing to add to this music. “The thing about the Rolling Stones,” says Richards. “I know for more covers. That night, he went to his
the blues,” he says, “is it changes in very that recording new music in a room they’re MP3 collection, returning the next day with
small increments. People reinterpret what not familiar with, there’s sometimes going more song ideas.
they know – Elmore James reinterpreted to be weeks before the room breaks in.” So And in keeping with the serendipity of the
Robert Johnson licks, as did Muddy Waters. Richards told fellow Stones guitarist Ron- endeavor, a special guest showed up. On the
So I’m not saying we’re making the jumps nie Wood to learn Little Walter’s apoca- first day, Eric Clapton happened to be mix-
TONY GALE/PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
that they made, but we can’t help but rein- lyptically mournful 1965 B side “Blue and ing an album of his own at British Grove
terpret these songs.” Lonesome” as a potential icebreaker (Wood when he poked his head into the Stones’
T
remembers this suggestion coming in by fax, live room. The guitarist, who had seen the
his past december, well before the sessions). Stones playing blues gigs when he was still
the Rolling Stones By the second day at British Grove, Rich- in his teens, was taken aback. “Eric walked
g a t he r e d i n M a rk ards felt his prediction coming true. “The in, and he had the same reaction that any
K nop f le r ’s Br it i s h room is fighting me,” he recalls thinking. fan would have,” says Was. “He was just gob-
Grove Studios in West “It’s fighting the band. The sound is not com- smacked at being that close to something
London to begin work ing.” He suggested “Blue and Lonesome,” that iconic and powerful. There was this
on a batch of original Jagger dug up a harmonica in the right key, great look on his face.” They asked Clapton
songs. Jagger is deliberately vague on the and the band barreled through two quick to jam on two songs, and he ended up pick-
nature of those tunes. “I hope it’s gonna be a takes. “Suddenly,” says Richards, “the room ing up one of Richards’ guitars, a semihol-
Ja n ua r y 2 017 rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 41
BACK TO
THE BLUES
low Gibson, instead of the Strats he’s mostly says Jagger, before launching into a lengthy, I didn’t know white guys could play like
played post-1970 – which helped him re- learned riff on the early days of jazz, when that.’ We connected, and they were not par-
claim the fat tone of his Bluesbreakers days: white musicians like Bix Beiderbecke were ticularly impressed about what color you
You can hear the band applauding him at quickly assimilated into the genre, but “the happen to turn out to be or whatever. Of
the end of “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” complaints were really on the fact – and you course, Muddy and the other guys did rec-
It all happened so quickly and naturally could level a lot of people with it – that the ognize that for some reason, the Stones had
that the band never really discussed what white people made more money.” brought this music back to America and
it was doing, or even acknowledged it was Richards has his own answer to the issue. repopularized it. Or not so much popular-
making an album. “I didn’t even have time “I’m black as the ace of fucking spades, ized it, just brought it to attention again.
to change my guitar,” says Wood. “They were man,” he says, deadpan. “Ask any of the And for that, I’m eternally proud, and that’s
coming so thick and fast. It was like, ‘OK, brothers.” He continues, “I didn’t know what probably the only way I’m going to get in
let’s do it – this one, that one.’ Some of the color these people were, as a kid. I don’t heaven.” He lets out a long, strangled laugh.
harder riffs were making my fingers bleed, think of blues as being of any particular Unlike many blues guitarists, Richards
and Mick was going, ‘Come, let’s do it again, color at all. Obviously, its history. But there never had much interest in being a lead-
then!’ And we’ll go, ‘Hang on! My fingers!’ It were white slaves, as well. There have been playing gunslinger. He was more fasci-
was real hard work, but I love it.” plenty of work songs from way back. Try nated by ensemble players like the Myers
For Jagger, it was a chance to indulge his Egypt. Quite Jewish, actually. You know, brothers, who backed Little Walter. “The
blues-harp habit, a subject that arouses an people have been doing this since histo- idea was to make the fucking band slam to-
incongruously geeky enthusiasm in him. “If ry began.” gether,” he says. “A quick, short, sharp solo
I had known I was gonna have to do this,” In the end, Jagger asks rhetorically, “Has here, boom, great. Otherwise, to me, the
he says, “I would have spent a few days prac- it hurt the music, this inf lux of foreign- fascination has always been that four or
ticing, because sometimes I do that, sit at ers and people from outside of the blues five guys can create a sound that sounds a
home and play. It’s quite easy, really; I mean, tradition, or has it helped the music? The lot larger than the actual number of mem-
you just put on whatever, a whole bunch of performers that I spoke to, Muddy Wa- bers actually involved.”
Muddy Waters records.” (Muddy “Missis- ters, Howlin’ Wolf, when they were alive, Richards is convinced that rock lost its
sippi” Waters – Live, a 1979 LP featuring they thought it had helped. There is groove, its “roll,” distancing itself from its
Johnny Winter, is one of Jagger’s favorites an exchange.” African-American influences, with the ad-
for this purpose.) vent of the electric bass some
Jagger’s vocals are also strik- 60 years ago. “By the middle
ing in their authority. The camp he Sixties,” he says, “you have
once brought to the genre is gone, the worst guitar player in
replaced by something darker and the band playing bass. So he
deeper, perhaps reflecting the weight “How long can I do this?” goes plunk-plunk-plunk, and
of real-life losses. “You can put your-
selves inside the songs as a 70-year- asks Jagger. “How long can I that’s a very European thing.”
W h i l e h e ’s a t i t , h e
old,” says Was, “in a way that you
couldn’t when you were 21, because
run the hundred-meter stage? shares another opin-
ion: “I mean, Jimi Hen-
you hadn’t experienced the stuff.”
“On some of these, I sound quite
I mean, as long as I can.” drix,” Richards says. “Love
him dearly. Incredible. He
old,” Jagger counters, “and on some ruined guitar. That whis-
of them, I don’t. Some of it sounds t ling saw sound. That ’s
like when I was in my twenties doing what they say about Col-
this stuff. I didn’t really mean it to sound Occasional Stones jam partner and Chi- trane with saxophones. Fantastic player.
like that. I was supposed to be more ma- cago-blues standard-bearer Buddy Guy Unfortunately, he ruined the instrument,
ture!” agrees. “They did so much for all the blues because after that everybody growled
W
people, especially the black people,” Guy through it.”
I
hile muddy says. “They were putting the music where we
waters was never had put it before, and they just let the n october , a s t he ston es
in England world know who we were. They didn’t just stepped onto the Desert Trip
in 1966, a come in and say, ‘Well, this is new.’ ” stage in Indio, California, some
journalist Even before the Stones, the Chicago thoughts crossed Mick Jagger’s
a s k e d t he bluesmen were supportive of white players mind. “It was 30 meters wider
then-53- – Muddy Waters mentored the harp player than our normal stage,” says Jag-
year-old bluesman what he thought about Paul Butterfield in the Fifties, for instance. ger, “which is quite wide, by the
Jagger and the Stones. “He took my music,” And the Stones grew close to the Chess Rec- way, which I usually run. And I heard that
Waters reportedly said, “but he gave me my ords crew, beginning with their pilgrimage nobody else went out there, apart from
name.” Technically speaking, of course, Wa- to the label’s headquarters in 1964, where me. So what the fuck did they build the
ters gave the Stones their name, via his 1950 they were befriended by Waters. (Richards stage for?
single “Rollin’ Stone,” but he was speak- has long maintained that Waters was paint- “Was that just for me? And I was just
ing metaphorically: He likely wouldn’t have ing the ceiling when they showed up, which thinking, ‘How long can I fucking do this?
been playing a big show in London in the Marshall Chess has denied – but the gui- How long can I run the hundred-meter
first place if not for the Stones. tarist is still positive this happened: “Why stage?’ I don’t know the answer to that. I
The Stones never questioned their right would I bother to make it up?”) mean, as long as I can. And then should
to sing and play the blues. What is now con- “Muddy made you feel like you were re- I stop performing when I can’t run the
sidered by some to be cultural appropria- ally part of it,” says Richards. “He sort of hundred-meter stage, is that it? Does that
tion is hardly a sin in their minds, then or brought you in. And Howlin’ Wolf was very mean I have to stop? No one else is using
now. “I don’t think we thought about that,” much the same. There was none of ‘Well, the hundred-meter stage!”
decades. That hasn’t changed, but the gui-
tarist doesn’t care. “The fact is, Mick and I
really don’t want to hang together before
we go onstage,” he says. “He has a routine
of how he gets together for the stage. Me, I
have a party.”
The Stones are discussing more shows
next year, and they really do intend to work
on that album of originals. “There’s about
10 or 12 new songs that Mick actually has
been cooking up,” says Wood, “and Keith’s
got the odd one, too.” Richards suggests
that at least some of the songs might be un-
finished compositions that date back 15
years or more.
They’ll all be in New York soon for
the opening of Exhibitionism, an elabo-
rate, immersive pop-up Stones museum
that includes a reproduction of the squal-
id apartment shared by Jagger, Richards
and Jones circa 1963,
and collectibles includ-
ing the cassette record-
er Richards used to demo
“(I Can’t Get No) Satis-
faction.” While they’re
As early as 1986, Richards was suggest- Deep Blues in town, Richards is try-
ing that Jagger simply stand in front of the Above: Mick ing to persuade them to
mic and sing, an idea that sends Jagger’s Jagger circa do some recording, which
eyes skyward. “That’s good advice, Keith,” 1970; Keith may be a stretch. Jagger is
Richards on an
he says, with caustic sarcasm. “Thanks so Austrian stamp, positive they’ll finish that
much. It’s very useful. He should stop play- 2003. Last year, album, “but I don’t know
ing the guitar. I mean, come on! There is Rolling Stones when, because you want
some other option besides ‘Are you gonna gathered in Mark it to be really good and
run the hundred meters or are you gonna Knopfler’s British everything.”
Grove Studios to They all share an almost
sit?’ You can still move a bit in the middle!”
begin work on a
Though Jagger blames the dusty field for batch of original scientific curiosity about
a recent bout of laryngitis – and he original- songs their future as a rock band
ly questioned the idea of a festival of “old, plunging through its sixth
KEYSTONE PICTURES USA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (MICK JAGGER); SERGEY GORYACHEV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (KEITH RICHARDS)
over-70 white English people playing all the decade. Again, how long
same music” – the band had a good time at head injury meant “goodbye to cocaine,” he can this go on? “I think we’re as interested
Desert Trip, treating it as a sort of boom- says. “I was actually fed up with the stuff. to find out as anybody else,” says Richards.
er-rock class reunion. They were all par- I was in a habit.” After quitting, he says, “But, man, I just got offstage a week ago
ticularly happy to see just-anointed Nobel “you make up for all the lost meals and all and we were playing ‘Brown Sugar,’ and I
Prize winner Bob Dylan, who brought one- the lost sleep.” While Wood has been sober turned to Charlie Watts and said, ‘This time
sies for Wood’s now-six-month-old twin since 2010, and even quit cigarettes for we got it right.’ ”
girls. Wood and Watts asked Dylan how the birth of his daughters, Richards hasn’t At 75, Watts is the oldest band mem-
he felt about his honor. “He said, ‘I don’t taken it that far. “I like a drink now and ber, and also happens to have the most
know,’ ” recalls Wood. “ ‘How should I feel? again,” he says. “And I do like a nice piece of physically demanding job. Understandably,
Is it good?’ I said, ‘You’re kidding. We real- hash. Or weed. I hear weed is legal!” he struggles with back pain, according to
ly think it’s great and you deserve it.’ And He and Jagger do seem to have found Wood. It’s unclear what the Rolling Stones
Dylan said, ‘Do I?’ ” some genuine peace. “I love the man,” says would do without him, and that’s a prospect
Richards is in his manager’s SoHo offices, Richards. “That doesn’t mean I can’t get Richards refuses to contemplate. “Char-
slumped majestically on a brown couch be- pissed off occasionally, and I have no doubt lie Watts will never die or retire,” Richards
neath a vintage Stones tour poster. On his it goes the other way around. But you have says. “I forbid him to.”
feet are the same bright-red Nikes Dylan to forgive and forget, and also I would say Jagger doesn’t seem eager to contemplate
noticed when the two hung out at Des- that 89 percent of the time we’re in total his own mortality, at least in interviews.
ert Trip: “Nice kicks,” Dylan said, to which agreement. But people only hear about the But if you remind him that he’s convinced
Richards replied, “I thought you’d never 11 percent, you know, where it flares up. everyone he’ll live forever, he’ll shoot back
notice.” What would the Stones be without it? If you without a pause: “I’m not going to.”
Richards is wearing a gray overcoat, snug had the perfect machine and everybody in Richards knows exactly how he’d like to
jeans and a T-shirt that reads do not x-ray. total agreement, you’d probably be fairly go, and he’s sure that doctors will want to
There’s a Rasta-style rainbow headband on bland. . . . It’s amazing we’re both alive. I cel- have “a good look at the liver” when he does.
his forehead and a lit Marlboro in his hand. ebrate Mick’s life. He’s always five months “I’d like to croak magnificently,” he says, sa-
For the first time in his adult life, Richards older than me!” voring the prospect. “Onstage.”
has lost his skeletal gauntness. His face is In his book, Richards complained that he
fuller. He looks almost . . . healthy. His 2006 hadn’t been in Jagger’s dressing room for Additional reporting by Patrick Doyle
ENGLISHMAN
IN NEW YORK
Sting in October
Sting’s
Rock
Roll
Salvation
He’s got a charmed life and a loud, hard-hitting new
album. So why can’t he stop thinking about dying?
By STEPHEN RODRICK
PHOTOGR APH BY DA NN Y CLINCH
STING’S
ROCK & ROLL
SALVATION
ting sits on a stool in a rehearsal space you chose me. Because that makes them less
of a victim. They’ve all turned out beauti-
on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. He cra- fully. I give all credit to their mothers.” He
pauses for a moment. “Was I a perfect par-
dles his bass and waits for drummer Vinnie ent? No. I wasn’t parented terribly well my-
Colaiuta to count in “50,000,” a rocking la- self, so I didn’t really have an idea.”
We agree to pick up the conversation in a
ment to Bowie, Prince, Lemmy and others lost few weeks. On the way out of a living room
lined with books, I point at a painting I like,
recently. It’s from 57th & 9th, his first rock an abstract with a lightbulb in the middle.
album in 13 years. His Springsteen-esque bi- “Oh, that’s a Basquiat,” says Sting offhand-
edly as he sips a cup of tea. “Andy [Warhol]
ceps pop out of a gray T-shirt. (Those muscles did the lightbulb.” He whispers the next bit.
“My grandchildren like to come in and put
made middle-aged women gasp and fan them- their hands all over it. They don’t know what
it is.” He grins. “It’s great.”
selves at a downtown acoustic show the night before.) Muffled, ungod-
S
ly sounds leak through the walls. It’s Kiss mucking about next door. ting named “57th & 9th”
after a Manhattan corner he
“Do you know Gene Simmons?” asked Sting later. “An interesting guy.” would cross every morning
on the way to the studio. He’d
stop and meditate for a mo-
ment about his day to come
Colaiuta starts the count, and an Austra- photo of the street he grew up on in Newcas- and days past before cross-
lian camera crew filming the proceedings tle, England, with a looming shipyard at the ing the street. He spends much of his time
moves in for a close-up. Sting halts his band end of the block. Everything in that photo in New York with his wife, Trudie Styler, a
for a moment. He sends his fingers on a not- has turned to dust: his house, his parents, film producer. His kids are grown, and he
so-secret journey. the shipyard. Staring at it had put him in a and Styler are empty-nesters. He appreciates
“OK, no boogers.” melancholy mood, an emotional state that the relative anonymity Manhattan provides.
A publicist titters, but Sting gives a he admits he revels in a little too much. “People here are all in their own TV show,” he
naughty grin and shrugs: “It’s always good “Pop music is supposed to be about girl- says. “They might stop and say, ‘Hey, Sting, I
to check.” friends and cars and the color of your shoes,” like your music,’ or ‘Hey, Sting, you suck,’ but
In the three days I spent with him, Sting then you just go on.”
played against the cliché of him as a dour Over the past decade, Sting has done ev-
rock god with an overly earnest sense of erything but make a rock record. Besides
self-importance. Sometimes he failed: He
humble-bragged that he received an award
“People said, that lute album, there was an orchestral ver-
sion of his greatest hits, a Police reunion and
from BMI for “Every Breath You Take” being ‘I don’t want to the passion project of The Last Ship, a musi-
played 13 million times in the United States.
“That’s quite a lot,” he said with arched eye- hear a fucking cal set in the Newcastle of his childhood. Un-
like on his previous solo albums, where songs
brows. This was shortly after he marveled
about Bob Dylan’s I’m-not-there attitude to- lute.’ I’d say, and arrangements would be painstakingly
laid out beforehand, Sting entered the stu-
ward winning the Nobel Prize.
Still, Sting now seems in on the joke that
‘What’s wrong dio for 57th & 9th with nothing – no lyr-
ics, no melodies and no concept. “We would
he is a tantric-sex-practicing, lute-playing
semi-egomaniac. He sends up his own exalt-
with the lute?’ ” ping-pong lines back and forth,” he says. “A
bass line or something until we had a riff or
ed image with comic timing. During a break a tune we liked.”
in rehearsal, he does an extended riff on his Sting is a prodigious walker – you can
much-maligned lute album from a decade he says. The banality of pop music is a fa- often see him strolling through Central
ago, Songs From the Labyrinth, which he miliar Sting trope that has led him to be ac- Park – and he’d think about the songs while
takes pains to point out sold a million cop- cused of taking himself way, way, way too se- moving about. But he still had to write the
ies. “People had a go at me,” he says. “Peo- riously since his “King of Pain” days. He pets words. So he would get home from a walk,
ple were like, ‘I don’t want to listen to the his dog, a pointer named Compass. “I’m 64. pour himself a cup of coffee, put on his
fucking lute.’ I’d say, ‘What’s wrong with the Most of my life has been lived already, and heavy coat, grab his guitar, and sit on his
lute?’ ” He pauses and smiles. “I think the in- then, like most of us when a cultural icon frigid balcony with gorgeous views of the
strument suffers from the Monty Pythoniza- dies, we’re children.” He stretches his palms Manhattan skyline. He didn’t allow him-
tion of the lute.” outward. “Because you think, ‘How could he self into the house until he’d written a set
Granted, Sting is never gonna be the rock or she die?’ ” of lyrics. “I wrote four songs in two days,”
& roll equivalent of the office clown blowing He cheerily admits to being a workaholic; says Sting. “It was fucking cold.”
beer out of his nose at the Christmas party. he notoriously slept through the birth of his Sting then brought the songs inside, usu-
“I think death is the most interesting subject first child. I ask him if he thought he’d made ally playing them for Styler, who he claims
in any art form, whether it’s literature or po- enough time for his six children – two of is his toughest critic. “She won’t say some-
etry or opera,” Sting told me a month earli- whom are musicians – in between his tour- thing is awful,” he says with a long-married
er while talking about “50,000” in his Cen- ing and recording. “That’s a good question,” smile. “But I can tell.”
tral Park West home. He’d shown me a 1962 he says. “If my kids would ever complain He has been writing covert protest songs
about that, I would say to them, only half se- since the Police’s “Driven to Tears,” so it is
Contributing editor Stephen Rodrick rious or half not serious, ‘For some reason, not a surprise that there’s a passel of slight-
wrote about James Corden in September. you chose me as a parent.’ Not ‘I chose you’; ly disguised political songs on the record.
1 1 about the mileposts, even if, when we first
met, he professed not knowing exactly how
old he was. Now a senior citizen, Sting
still looks, annoyingly, 38. It’s not by acci-
dent. Every morning he swims laps for an
hour while listening to Bach cello concer-
tos played by Yo-Yo Ma. He then does a Pi-
lates class. He describes himself as “vain
and disciplined.” I ask if there was ever a
point where he’d let himself go and put on
20 or 30 pounds post-tour. He looks at me
as if I were mad: “Fuck, no! I’d kill myself.
I’d just die of shame. I’m a fattist when it
comes to myself.”
With all the talk of self-preservation,
you could get the idea that Sting is one of
those famous persons who has convinced
himself that his exalted state in the people
food chain means, just possibly, he’ll never
die. Not so. The day before he turned 65, he
played before a crowd of 100,000 at half-
time of Australian-rules football’s version of
the Super Bowl, in Melbourne. He then
spent most of his birthday alone at his
hotel thinking about having more days
behind him than in front of him.
He spends an inordinate amount of
time thinking and writing about death.
His parents died young, and Sting
skipped their funerals, blaming touring
responsibilities, but now knows it was a
mistake. Still, he hasn’t exactly made his
peace with the end. “I have been thinking
about death since I was a kid,” says Sting,
12 who was raised Catholic. “I get a kind of
2
spiritual vertigo. I was brought up in a re-
ligious background with ideas of eternity,
All This Time eternal torment or eternal heaven, which
sounded just as tormented to me. I became
(1) With Andy Summers and obsessed with it, maybe morbid about it.”
Stewart Copeland of The Police One of Sting’s attempts to parse mortal-
in 1981. The band’s 2007-08 reunion
ity has been through multiple experiences
is unlikely to be repeated. “It
closed the circle,” Sting says. taking the drug ayahuasca, a psychedelic
(2) As a three-year-old in popular in South American spiritual cere-
Newcastle, England. (3) With his monies. “I think it’s a way of rehearsing the
wife of 24 years, Trudie Styler. feeling of being dead,” he says, stressing it’s
not a pleasure drug. “Every time, I have to
3
TRINITY MIRROR MIRRORPIX/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (1); COURTESY OF THE SUMNER FAMILY (2);
work up the courage to do it. You basical-
ly face your mortality, and it’s as if you’re
“One Fine Day” humorously deals with The politics of his songs have evolved as dead, out of time. Your whole life passes in
the quixotic hope that climate change is well. We talk about “We Work the Black front of you in this other realm. I can only
in fact a myth as the world melts around Seam,” a 1985 lament about Thatcherism, sound vague about it. Most people die in
us. “Ishallah” deals with the refugee crisis the danger of nuclear power and the loss of total panic. Terror. I think there’s anoth-
from a humanitarian perspective; “Empty coal jobs in Newcastle and other areas that er way. We’re supposed to die. There must
Chair” is an ode to foreign correspondent were dear in Sting’s childhood. Now, he is be a way to die peacefully and welcoming.”
L
James Foley, executed by ISIS in 2014. A more versed in the downside of dirty coal
recent interviewer linked Sting to Woody and the necessity of nuclear power. “What istening to sting and
Guthrie, a comparison that baff les him. we know about power, I would say my po- his band play songs from
“Woody Guthrie, that I’ve never heard,” sition has shifted,” he says. “I think if we’re 57th & 9th, one of the
says Sting with a smirk. “Woody Wood- going to tackle global warming, nuclear first things I notice is
DEBBY WONG/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (3)
pecker, yes.” power is the only way you can create mas- that there is clear space
Sting has been an activist for more than sive amounts of power.” bet ween t he instr u-
30 years, but he keeps a lower profile about Inside, the band is waiting. He wants to ments. Love him or hate
it these days, content to run his Rainforest make one thing perfectly clear: “But, hey, him, Sting’s songs are rarely cluttered with
Foundation Fund with Styler and a board I’m not a scientist.” a cacophony of sound to disguise the lack
of experts, working on smaller projects that of an idea. There’s a touch of audio aloof-
help people in 21 countries in the subequa- between our two visits, i turned 50 ness to them, as if Sting has a secret that
torial parts of the world. while Sting hit 65. He was keen to talk he’s not quite letting you in on. That aloof-
Onstage in Marysville,
California with
The Police on their
North American
Reunion Tour, 2008
A
ness is present in his personality as well. and forgiving. “One of us can make a mis- mbition in the young and beau-
You get a sense that he’s throwing a jab that take and he just goes with it or it opens tiful can leave a sour taste. Ambition
keeps the rest of the world from grabbing a new avenue,” says Miller. That is real in the old and beautiful can be en-
him in a clinch. “I’ve been with him for 27 growth for Sting from his earlier days. dearing. The night before his band rehears-
years, but I wouldn’t say we are very close,” Asked about his long reputation for being a al, Sting did an acoustic sing-and-talk show
says Dominic Miller, his longtime guitarist. not-so-benevolent dictator, he readily nods at the Grammy Museum in L.A. Sting was
“But what I can do is get very close to him his head. “I used to be an arrogant, feisty busy being Sting, questioning why he had
on a musical level.” old fucker. I’m a better bandleader. I’m a to hold a mic, barely not rolling his eyes at
The loner part of Sting is largely respon- more calm person.” He pauses a second and questions he thought banal and asking his
sible for the Police breaking up after only gives a Cheshire grin. “I think.” host to guess how many years it would take
nine years. “A band is a democracy,” says The calmer Sting was present the night to listen to all of his music on Spotify – just
Sting. “Or the semblance of democracy. You after the presidential election in New York. his solo work, mind you, no Police work.
have to pretend more in a band.” While he While the citizens of Manhattan freaked When the host shrugged, Sting told him,
claimed to have enjoyed the Police’s 2007 out and binge-drank before a show at Ir- “Twenty-seven years. Imagine that.”
reunion, Sting might have been fibbing. “It ving Plaza, Sting appeared and acknowl- He also reported that “I Can’t Stop
was a return back to that forced democ- edged that many in the crowd had been Thinking About You” had entered at Num-
racy and reminded me just why I’m not in “traumatized.” Instead of a lecture, he led ber Four on something called the Adult Al-
the band,” he says. “It was Stewart’s band. the crowd in chanting a very British slogan: ternative airplay chart. Sting hadn’t made
He started it, he named it, and it was his “Keep calm and carry on.” Perhaps not co- any chart for a decade, and you could tell it
concept.” I ask if the band was still a de- incidentally, he launched into “Message in meant a lot. But there was more to the story.
mocracy by 1983, the time of Synchronic- a Bottle,” and the well-healed crowd sang a His musician daughter, Eliot Sumner, was
ity and Policemania. He slyly smiles and little louder at the chorus: “Sending out an on the same chart, right ahead of her father.
shrugs. “No.” S.O.S. Sending out an S.O.S. . . .” He had told me the story earlier: “It was
RANDY MIRAMONTEZ/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Sting is still friendly with ex-bandmates There was more healing to do a few days fantastic. She was thrilled and said, ‘Ah,
Andy Summers and Copeland, whom he later in Paris. Sting reopened the Bata- Dad, we’re in the same chart.’ ” He paused
saw before a Hollywood Bowl show last clan, where, last November, 89 concertgo- for a second, and the mask Sting sometimes
year. He said the reunion tour shan’t be re- ers were murdered by Islamic terrorists. He wears fell over his chiseled face. “She actu-
peated: “For me, it closed the circle. We’d addressed the crowd in French. “We will ally had one more play than me.”
never officially broke up. It was perfect tim- not forget them,” Sting said. “Tonight we I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.
ing. For me, it feels complete.” have two tasks to settle. First, to remember And then he broke into a toothy smile. For
Listening in on his rehearsal with his and honor those who lost their life in the at- a moment, Sting wasn’t Sting, just a proud
current band, Sting seems more relaxed tacks. Then, to celebrate life and music.” father. It was a good look on him.
Reviews
“Neon singer with a jukebox title
full of heartbreak/33, 45, 78 –
When it hurts this good,
You gotta play it twice/Another vice.”
—Mir a nda L a mbert, “Vice”
Miranda
Lambert:
Blonde
on the
Tracks
The country queen
flirts and drinks
and digs deep on a
powerful double LP
Miranda Lambert
The Weight of These Wings RCA
HHHH
BY WILL HERMES
Miranda Lambert’s latest opens
on a classic country image: a
weekend hangover echoing
the one in K ris K ristoffer-
son’s “Sunday Mornin’ Com-
ing Down.” But “Runnin’ Just
in Case” is no brooding existen-
tial ramble. It’s a gravel-spitting
exit from sorrow’s driveway,
bad memories shriveling in the
rearview. And it sets the tone
for the Nashville star’s most
ambitious LP, a rangy two-disc
set ditching country’s main-
stream playbook for the sort
of Great Album that rock acts
used to crank out regularly back
in the day.
Rubber neckers have an-
ticipated The Weight of These
Wings since Lambert split from
Blake Shelton, ending their
four-year term as country’s
First Couple (another thank-
less job). Sure, it’s a “break-
up record.” But it’s more about
songs for the ages than tabloid
Illustration by Chris Buzelli rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 49

Reviews
raw meat. With an A-list co-
author team including Nat-
alie Hemby, Liz Rose, Ash-
ley Monroe and Lambert’s
boyfriend, Anderson East,
Lambert co-wrote 20 of 24
tracks and filled out the rest
with well-chosen covers; see
“Covered Wagon,” a 1971 jam
by singer-songwriter Danny
O’Keefe, and “You Wouldn’t
Know Me,” by Texas trouba-
dour Shake Russell.
The album’s two parts –
“The Nerve” and “The Heart”
– pivot on songs about roman-
tic rebound. “Use My Heart”
chronicles a sort of lovers’
PTSD; “Tin Man” extends
the cardiac metaphor per The
Wizard of Oz; “Pushin’ Time”
is a steely but fragile collab-
oration (with East, fittingly)
about late-game relationships
that can’t afford to dawdle.
Emmylou Harris’ 1995 LP
Wrecking Ball, with its floaty
Daniel Lanois production,
seems a touchstone here. But
this is also an album with dirt
under its manicured nails:
There’s the hoarse hollers
and guitar skronk on “Pink
Sunglasses,” and the perm-
damaged hair-metal riffs on
“Vice,” where Lambert’s dec-
laration “said I wouldn’t do Rough
it/But I did it again” echoes justice:
Britney Spears minus the in- Metallica
génue coyness, consequences
clattering like leg irons. There
Metallica’s Hyperthrash
are goofs (“For the Birds”)
and throwaways (“Bad Boy”).
But these moments are often
Wasteland
less lightweight than they
seem; see “Tomboy” (rhymes
with “move along, boy”) and
“Getaway Driver,” its unset-
tled friendship as touchingly The band returns to its classic sound and a brutality perfect for our times
queer in its way as Little Big
Town’s “Girl Crush.”
Metallica Hardwired . . . to Self-Destruct Blackened HHHH
The set’s most vintage mo- It’s been eight Hetfield – are melodically as- ry, Hetfield is on vintage-lyr-
ment is “To Learn Her,” a years since Me- sured furies of serial riffing and ic ground in the wastelands
honky-tonk weeper worthy tallica’s last stu- tempo shocks. “Hardwired,” evoked here: the false-idol
of George Jones, offering a dio album. But “Atlas, Rise!” and “Now That worship in “Halo on Fire” and
lovers’ curriculum with no t h a t ’s small We’re Dead” are relentless “Moth Into Flame”; the cy-
easy answers. It’s emblemat- change next to their long haul whirls of tribal chug and hy- cles of arrogance and inhu-
ic of an album that never wal- to this two-disc resurrection: perthrash, braking hard at the manity that breed payback in
lows in breakup pain, but in- via the jagged apocalypse of title chorus lines. “Here Comes Revenge.” In the
stead deals – making plans, 1988’s . . . And Justice for All Guitarist Kirk Hammett’s blitzkrieg “Spit Out the Bone,”
getting drunk, flirting, testi- and the focused brawn of 1991’s torrid wah-wah solos affirm Hetfield imagines an Earth
fying and, above all, moving Metallica. The mostly epic- his standing as heavy metal’s cleansed of man by the tech-
GRIFFIN LOTZ
on. And if you’re fingering a length tracks – almost entirely most tuneful arsonist. And nology we crave. If you listen
few scars of your own, you’ll written by drummer Lars Ul- after working out his interi- on your phone, be very afraid.
be rooting for her. rich and singer-guitarist James or rage earlier in this centu- DAVID FRICKE
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and refined but also fun and sharp. New York highlights a
more casual and chic line.Los Angeles is the inspiration for
a minimalist style, a functional expression stripped of all
excesses. Blue Bali is a denim wear line while Ghana is a
very relaxed collection range which imposes a graphic and
colourful style whcih draws its inspiration from the denim
world. Finally, New Orleans is a more formal collection
range which contains a combination of old and new trends.
rollingstoneindia.com | R ol l i n g S t o n e | 51
Totem by Kenzo
Police Icon Gold
Kenzo perfumes breathe a new energy and
The characteristic eagle-shaped bottle is now reinterpreted
a new tempo into three Eau de Toilette
in a new prestigious version inspired by the concepts of
under one name, Totem. Kenzo chose to
gold and luxury. With an explosive accord of bergamot,
launch three fragrances instead of just one
the fragrance is full of sparkling freshness and agility. The
to captivate all identities. Three mighty
beauty of the bottle’s geometric lines is further enhanced
signatures, universal, but with a strong
by a golden varnish, which exalts the facets of the glass and
character. The Woody Citrus is modern and
transforms the bottle into a precious ornament. Priced at
sparkling, exhaling an aroma of freshness,
INR 2,895 for a 125ml bottle.
Woody Floral symbolizes a new energy and
Woody Fruity evokes a modern, gourmand
kind of sensuality, which is neither too
smooth, nor too obvious. The perfumes are
priced at INR 3,100.
Lady Million Prive

by Paco Rabanne
With notes of orange blossom
and vibrant wood, Lady Million
Eau de Parfum plays the
seduction card, attracting her
partner to a romantic scent.
The amazing trio of sunny
heliotrope flower, hot and
creamy vanilla and raspberry
seals the enchantment. In
the base notes, soft and
captivating cocoa bean comes
to the fore, followed by honey
and vibrant patchouli. It is
priced at INR 6,800 for an
80ml bottle.
MZ-X Series Keyboards’

1.40 Update by Casio
The MZ-X Series Keyboard 1.40 update
has additional user accompaniment
storage capacity, a new direct import
from USB flash drive to accompaniment
function and enhanced settings for the
pattern sequencer recorder. Also added
is a new record repeat setting for the
pattern sequencer recorder and a new
tempo option for registration filter items.
Vans Old Skool

Vans Old Skool is an iconic footwear
form that has endured the test of
time. This holiday season, the Vans
Old Skool appears in an assorted mix
of colors, patterns and materials. The
arrangement of solid-colored styles
present dark tones such as eclipse,
ivy green and iron brown together
with an offering of neons and pastels
for men and women. It also includes
a collection of prints like the iconic
checkerboard, nebula mountain, paint
splatter and floral on the quarter
panels of each shoe.
GIG CALENDAR
Kuenta i Tambu
GOAT FESTIVAL 2017
After the exit of two of its most
popular music festivals,
Sunburn and VH1 Supersonic,
Goa is now home to a new
festival, GOAT, organized by
London-based music and events
agency GOAT. Some of the
international acts set to perform
are tropical bass group Kuenta i
Tambu, South African rapper
Dope Saint Jude and soul
electronic act Sorceress from
New Zealand. Indian names
include electro-folk act Donn
Bhat + Passenger Revelator,
producer Aqua Dominatrix and
more.
January 27th-29th
MORJIM, GOA
NARIYAL PAANI SUNBURN ARENA will perform in three cities. GENERATION WHY GOA SUNSPLASH
On the back of hosting a WITH DAVID GUETTA The venues are still to be The first edition of the 2017
stellar second edition last French DJ, record produc- announced. ‘Generation Why’ gig series Goa Sunsplash brings a
year, featuring the likes of er, re-mixer and songwriter will feature hip-hop crew wave of reggae to India.
singer-songwriter Prateek David Guetta returns to January 13th Swadesi, alternative pop- The second edition of the
Kuhad and electronic India as part of his Unity MUMBAI rock group Ryan Victor festival is to be headlined
duo Nicholson, India’s Tour 2017. Guetta has sold Project and new kids on by some heavyweights in
most chilled-out festival over nine million albums January 14th the block Cat Kamikazee. the global reggae scene,
is back with its coconut and 30 million singles HYDERABAD including UK dub producer
trees, camping tents and worldwide. The tour will be January 5th Zion Train, digital reggae
of course a great lineup of part of the DJ’s #Guetta- January 15th HARD ROCK CAFÉ, specialist Manudigital
musicians. 4Good initiative. The DJ NOIDA ANDHERI, MUMBAI from France, veteran
British MC Brother Culture
COURTESY OF GOAT MUSIC FESTIVAL (KUENTAI I TAMBU); ELLEN VON UNWERTH (DAVID GUETTA)
January 21st-22nd and the reggae-dancehall
ALIBAUG, RAIGAD David Guetta singer Cali P from Jamaica.
KATATONIA January 14th-15th

Swedish doom/prog metal NYEX BEACH CLUB, GOA
band Katatonia return to
India after nearly seven ANAND BHASKAR
years, to headline the COLLECTIVE
Rock Show at IIT Madras’s The alternative rock-fusion
annual college festival act will be launching their
Saarang. Best known new album this month.
for crafting a heavy yet The band pen strik-
melancholic sound, the ingly relevant lyrics that
Swedes released their 10th complement their music in
studio album ‘The Fall of an easy and comprehensi-
Hearts’ in May 2016. ble manner. The upcoming
release features nine new
January 7th songs.
SAARANG, IIT MADRAS,
CHENNAI January 10th,
ANTISOCIAL, MUMBAI
GUEST
THE PLAYLIST
OUR FAVORITE SONGS, ALBUMS AND VIDEOS RIGHT NOW
LIST
2. The
1. Childish Magnetic
Gambino Fields
“Redbone” “ ’93 Me and Fred
and Dave and Ted”
Nick
Has anyone ever done
the actor-to-rapper
thing as well as Com-
Stephin Merritt is releas-
ing an album of 50
Valensi
songs, one for every year
Great Songs by
munity/Atlanta star
Donald Glover? This of his life – including this Guitarists-Turned-
single from his third sweet ode to New York in Singers
’93, complete with squa-
LP exudes geeky
lor, sex and gunplay.
warmth, as he splays The Strokes guitarist just
helium-soul love released the debut album
all over a rubbery 3. Saba by his new hard-rock band,
CRX. “It’s fairly obvious why I
P-Funk groove. But
when he sings, “You
“Westside chose this category,” he says.
better believe in Bound 3”
An elegiac image of
New Order
something,” it’s clear “Age of Consent”
there’s more going on Chicago from rapper A lot of New Order
here than just looped- Saba. Poignant details songs are heavy on the elec-
(like leaving for college
out fun. tronics. I really like this song
as your friends go to jail) because it sounds like a band.
drive the song home.
KOBBY DAGAN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (CHILDISH GAMBINO); HELGA ESTEB/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (NICK VALENSI); BETH EISGRAU-HELLER/KEXP (CHARLY BLISS);
Peter Tosh
4. Sylvan Esso “Legalize It”
Quitting the Wailers was a
“Kick Jump Twist” ballsy move, but he wanted to
Amelia Meath, the singer in this North be a singer. This song spoke
Carolina synth-pop duo, can pull you to the hearts and minds of
out on the dance floor with just a stoners all over the world.
murmur, and this crinkly track will keep
you there all night.
6. Charly George Harrison
Bliss “Wah-Wah”
He had to separate himself
“Turd” from the Beatles to find out
A great punk-rock who he was. It’s so dope he
banger about getting wrote a song about a
guitar pedal.
OVIDIU HRUBARU SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (NICKI MINAJ); GEORGE SALISBURY (THE FLAMING LIPS)
catcalled (“In your
dreams, turd!”), with all
sales going to
Planned Parenthood. The Heartbreakers
“Born to Lose”
Johnny Thunders was one of
the coolest voices to come
out of the New York punk-
rock generation. It’s clear
7. Nicki Minaj from his voice he just does
“Black Barbies” not give a fuck.
5. The Flaming Just as Rae Sremmurd’s “Black
Lips Beatles” went Number One, Nicki
Minaj dropped this killer freestyle
Keith Richards
“Take It So Hard”
“How??” over that irresistible hit: “Island I wonder if Keith played this
Amiably deranged psych rock girl, Donald Trump want me go for Mick, because
that’s perfectly poised between home/Still pull up with my wrist this should have been
wonderment and dread. This lookin’ like a Rolling Stones song – it’s
darkly hulking song from the Lips’ a snow cone,” she raps. We’re all that good. You can just feel
forthcoming album is like viewing just lucky to his personality.
an alien craft over a far-off ridge. live in her flex zone.
We’re probably gonna die, but,
man, does it look awesome.
RNI NO. MAHENG/2008/25616
ISSN 2277 - 1859 Rolling Stone

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