The local musicians will be joined by 1001Ways, a music project led by Tobias Huber from Switzerland, Parinday Music of Soul from India, and Soul Set of Denmark.[break]
Here is what the two bands from Denmark and India have to say before they take over the stage at Jawalakhel Football Ground.
Parinday Music of Soul
Parinday is a music group from India which plays a blend of occidental music with ragas. The band comprises Jivesh Singh on lead guitar and vocals, Shobhit Tyagi on drums, Sunny Dogra on bass, Arshad Khan on tabla, and is joined by violinist Anupriya who has performed in over 40 countries.
Where else have you performed other than in India?
Even though the band was formed around 2007, we only started performing since 2010. We played at the Festival of India, in China, and Indonesia.
Do you know anything about the local artists you’ll be sharing the stage with at Nepal Music Festival?
Arshad has played with Sukarma before and we’ve heard so many good things about 1974 A.D. and Robin and the New Revolution.
What are your expectations from the Nepali crowd? How do you think will they react to your music?
We’re really excited to see how the crowd will react to our approach of hardcore North Indian classical music. We’ve been touched by the simplicity and honesty of Nepali people. We believe that our music will help generate love between the two countries. Our music is rich and sincere, no distortion but sensational. The fusion of classical and western music that we play promotes the idea of peace, love and humanity. The band is like a family and that’s well reflected in our music. We feel the spark in every rehearsal, every performance, and our composition has given us goose bumps. We’re hopeful that the same happens with the audience too.
Soul Set
Soul Set is a band from Denmark with Anders Pergland on bass, Anne Pergland on drums, and Jakob Hein on guitar and vocals. They mostly play rock, with influences from Latin, soul and world music. They started out by performing in small bars and clubs in Copenhagen, doing soul covers and moved on to write their own music.
How did Soul Set come into being?
Anders and Jakob used to play in a hard rock band together. Jakob was working in Eygpt for sometime and when he got back, he spoke to Anders about playing soft and sensuous music this time. Anne just joined; she has been with the band for just two months.
What kind of music did you grow up listening?
Jakob: Prince and Pink Floyd.
Anders: Prince, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen; and soul music, mostly Motown.
Anne: The Beach Boys and Neil Young.
Why the transition from Rock to Soul?
It’s quite easy to play loud and fast music. You can hide a lot of things with noise and speed.But in order to express yourself, you have to slow down and be quiet. We’ve been listening to Soul all our lives and now we’re going back to childhood, to our roots and playing our favorite music. But Rock still shines through; we grew up listening to Rock with friends, so there will always be that penchant.
What are you expecting from Nepali people? Have you heard of/listened to any of the local musicians?
People usually cheer and ask for more when we play, which we believe is a good reaction. We’ll see how the crowd gets when we perform. Yes, we’ve listened to a few songs by Mukti’s band. He’s great!
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