JOIN USTAAQ set to release its new single
Thermal And A Quarter (TAAQ) will be releasing their new single titled ‘Tilt’ next week. Primarily acoustic, this groovy new track has a chill vibe with a contemplative message, says Bruce Lee Mani, the frontman of TAAQ.
The new album does well to capture the emotions of fear, outrage, indifference, hate, rebellion and conformity that humanity is currently going through.
In a chat with Metrolife, Bruce talks about the making of the album and more.
Tell us about the new single and the inspiration behind it.
We put out a really intense album called ‘A World Gone Mad’ in March this year, days before the world’s biggest lockdown was imposed in India. We were supposed to get on a seven-city, three-month tour immediately afterwards, which, of course, was scuttled thanks to Covid-19.
Stuck in our homes for the next couple of months, I was playing more acoustic guitar than electric, and trying to make sense of the new reality.
Staying positive and focused is hard — and I guess that’s where the inspiration for the song came from. In our increasingly polarised world, do we have to ‘swing’ all the time? Can’t we find a balance and ‘tilt’ instead?
‘Tilt’ is an acoustic song with a chill, groovy vibe. Written in just one afternoon, the song came together pretty quick; roughly recorded demos were emailed between the band members before we finally met up, after three months, to work on the song. We finally got the arrangement and production down and went into studio mid-September.
When are you planning to release it and where can people listen to it?
‘Tilt’ is releasing to worldwide streaming on October 9. Given how easy it is to stream music, all that people will have to do is reach for their phones.
It will also be on our website www. thermalandaquarter.com, and on BandCamp for those who want to purchase ‘lossless’/Wav formats.
How has the last seven months changed the music scene across the country?
Well, not just here, is it around the world. Live gigs are goners. Here in India, given the state of things, it looks like it may be another year before the live scene returns to any kind. Musicians everywhere are struggling.
Online gigs do not typically pay much, and the interaction is just not the same. Recording and releasing music takes time, effort and money, and streaming revenue isn’t going to pay any bills, especially for artistes working in a niche.
How is the response to online performances? How different is it from performing live?
Chalk and cheese! It was great to do a few corporate online streaming gigs across the last few months — and we’ve been putting the videos from those on our YouTube channel.
It was definitely great to see some revenue too. Teaching online seems to work really well. Taaqademy has now transitioned to being fully online for now. We are in 13 countries and have more students than we ever had physically.
How have you been spending the last seven months?
Keeping Taaqademy going, staying positive, safe and well, keeping the music going — all this has kept me quite focused, so no real complaints.