Sontakke’s new album is all about Bengaluru

See yourself at Vidyarthi Bhavan and the dosa memories it brings? Imagine the fast pace of the city represented in musical notes?

The just-released album Satrang, from the Dr Prakash Sontakke Group, is dedicated to Bengaluru and its sights and sounds.

With seven songs, the album offers something for everyone. Sontakke, well-known slide guitarist, started working on the album two years ago.

“Though the album is called Satrang, it doesn’t restrict itself to seven colours. Like our tagline, it is about ‘any colour you like’,” he told Metrolife.

Describing the city as one of the “most multicultural spaces in the country,” Sontakke says Bengaluru houses the maximum variety of music too.

“How all these elements work out together on a musician is what I have experimented with in this album,” he says.

What makes Satrang stand out? “The very fact that I have written and sung all the songs. The making of the album is such that it is easy on the ear and not too technical. The technicalities are well hidden in the joy of the music,” he says. The lyrics are in Hindi.

Sontakke comes from a classical music background and would often think why youth listen to Coldplay and Honey Singh and not to raga music.

“This work definitely relates to them though it is not an outright pop album,” he says.

The album includes artistes such as Chaitra Kalakrishnan, Aparna Sontakke, C S Balasubramanian, Anurag Sontakke, Raman Ravi, Prabhat Gopal, Chaitra Sontakke, Uma Sudhindra, Madhusudana and actor Pruthvi Banwasi.

The songs have different influences and yet they all come together, he says. “Ali Maula has a little Arabic and Afghani influence in it, Bolo Ram is a hard-rock driven song, and Vidyarthi Bhavan is relaxed rock,” he says.

‘Every song tells a story’

Sontakke says he has distilled his experiences into the album.

“My son was in the 10th standard then and we used to advise him not to waste time. Many precious moments he might have enjoyed are gone. One day, we were at Vidyarthi Bhavan and I asked him to hurry up and he said “five minutes”. That’s when I realised I was in a wild hurry always. I have now made a song about it. Every song explores a story.”

Dr Prakash Sontakke

It’s online too

Satrang is available on CD and on online platforms iTunes, Amazon, Saavn and Gaana, and is priced at Rs 120.