JOIN USIt’s a typical Bengaluru Sunday in late 2014. Music man Sandeep Madhavan lies in bed, distracted by the Internet when the electronica band Mode.AKA’s Facebook page gets a message from Dibakar Banerjee Productions.
“I’m not clued in to know Bollywood, so I thought it was one of those filmmakers who gets you all pumped up about your music in his films and six months later, nothing materialises,” recounts Sandeep.
The impact of who it was hit Sandeep when he Googled director Dibakar Banerjee. “That was when I called Manas (Ullas), the other band member, all excited and giggly, to tell him that our music would be featured in a Bollywood film called Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!,” he recalls.
Bollywood was a nouveau take on Sandeep’s otherwise deep, dark underlay of emotions, surfacing through the strains of varied instruments, always providing surprise turns to the listener, as in the albums released under the solo project called The Burning Deck. “It’s moody and melancholic minor-key music. It’s me sitting in the bedroom creating electronic soundscapes to be merged with analog instrumentation that takes me back to certain places that mean a lot to me. It’s more influenced by cinematic scores and composers than by bands or artistes. My bass-playing isn’t the driving force in the music, because often it starts off as a sound I’ve sliced into a million pieces, or a synth/keyboard click. Music constantly evolves,” explains Sandeep.
Straddling genres
For Sandeep, there are the challenges of composing for a Bollywood flick and doing his own number. “In Bollywood, there’s a brief and visuals you have to compose for. The essential framework keeps you grounded while you try to explore the limits of the structure,” explains Sandeep, adding, “Composing your own tunes takes you to places you didn’t know existed, but that can be debilitating. However, each genre has its merits.”
How does music fill the gap where words, dialogues and visuals fail to communicate? “The music in films serves to complement and accentuate the emotional landscape. So it must not detract or distract from what’s been served up on screen, unless the brief is that. There are hits and misses leading up to what you finally hear,” maintains the adman and creative writer.
Beginning in Bengaluru, exploring the musical dens of the world and then entering Bollywood, Sandeep has transitioned as a person and an artiste. “I feel like I’ve gone through a few lifetimes since I’ve embarked on this musical journey. It’s been only three years since I’ve been a full-time musician. I’ve met incredible minds along the way, have jammed with them and have understood their way of working,” beams the bassist, adding, “In 2014, I collaborated with a few left-field luminaries like rapper Himanshu Suri (Heems of Das Racist) and writer Jeet Thayil. It was incredible.”
Sandeep says that 2015 has been incredible as well. Posters everywhere read: ‘Mode.AKA, the electronic duo Sandeep Madhavan and Manas Ullas in Dibakar Bannerjee’s highly awaited noir thriller, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’, releasing under the Yash Raj Films banner. He comments, “Working with Dibakar was a breeze. He’s got a wicked brain, and the way he looks at things is in a non-Bollywood sense — there’s no room for cheesiness. He allowed us full creative freedom. We got cinematic and massive with the song Andov.a. The movie’s got the makings of a classic,” asserts Sandeep.
The music certainly seems to have the makings of a record blockbuster with over 1 million YouTube hits three days after the release of the film’s trailer featuring a mash up of their tracks Andov.a and Chick.n.
To get the groove to work like mojo on music buffs, what did the musician do? “If I knew, I’d be really rich. It’s the factor of writing down and recording every idea that comes to my mind, wherever I am. Sometimes it works, sometimes it facepalms, but that’s another addition to my music library,” says the roving musician. Bollywood is showing loads of interest in Mode.AKA. “But we’re weighing in on what we’d like to do and where our music can go. These are early days,” maintains Sandeep, but confirms that “there will be some news later on in the year.”
Dream projects
For now, there’s plenty of news to digest — Sandeep is in between scoring a soundtrack for a short film about cultural differences made by his filmmaker-friend Jake Wachtel in Phnom Penh (Cambodia). “I’m dropping a single called Tell me a Poem with Heems, about his self-imposed exile in India following the breakup of Das Racist. This will be followed by a bunch of tracks that are more hip-hop and neo-soul than anything else, inspired by old school producers and MCs like J Dilla, Madlib and MF Doom,” he goes on.
Mode.AKA will release its debut album in a few months, “collaboration- friendly, big beats and massive synths as usual.” Sandeep says he played a lot of 7-string guitar for this album, “and big, dumb riffs that tried their best to channel Gang of Four’s Andy Gill and Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil.”
“The Burning Deck’s next and the last album of a trilogy is the story of a boy on a burning deck. It’s made to sound spookier than the previous album ‘Deluge’ with more sax and violin strains. A few singles are melancholic and feature Jeet Thayil. There is an EP with a swing/jazz project called The Watercolour Orchestra. There are gigs with The Kuru Circus, which is a live art performance where I’ve to unleash weird sounds on a MIDI synthesiser,” lists out Sandeep, relaxed in the freedom that rhythm brings with it.
Well, it’s a typical Bengaluru Sunday in early 2015 as Sandeep lies in bed, distracted by the Internet.