Immediately upon reaching the second song of Peter Cat Recording Co.’s new album in five years, we realise we’re in familiar territory. In the context of this New Delhi band that owes its name to a celebrated Japanese author’s jazz bar and a Kolkata restaurant, that means we are in, as always, for an effervescent ride, full of sonic surprises inspiring myriad emotions ranging from extreme happiness to extreme anger, sadness or frustration, together almost magically coalescing into a feeling of deep contentment.
All of this is awash in a sprightly array of strings, horns, mild electronica, drums and some percussive insistence that hold up an endearing and authoritative voice belting out poems and rants about life, newborns and grown-ups, fathers and mothers, friends and flowers. “It is,” the band says, “a collection of stories about the future told 50 years in the past, to make sense of the present, on our only home, planet Earth.”
PCRC’s 13 new songs, let loose partially in the streaming universe and coming wrapped in a double vinyl on August 9, take us through life and its many meandering turns, questioning, pleading, declaring, even unburdening the odd profundity that leaves us yearning for more. The music is quintessential PCRC, but with a wider palette they sound more adventurous than, say, Portrait of A Time: 2010-2016 and Bismillah (2019).
The new album is called Beta, pronounced ‘beytaa (child)’, not to be confused with the Greek letter. We hear ‘beta’ being called fleetingly in the opening track, Flowers R Blooming, that begins with a muted explosion followed by intimate chimes of what sounds like a santoor as a soulful clarinet takes over. “Maybe I'm a fool, a fool like you believing in heaven from inside a zoo,” sings Suryakant Sawhney, the band’s principal singer-songwriter who has been described by many, TheTelegraphOnline included, as a Sinatra-like open ended crooner.
PCRC in performance at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, London, last year. Instagram: petercatrecordingco
But it’s the following track, People Never Change, released worldwide as a teaser to the album that draws the listener into the often inscrutable PCRC universe. Dholaks, as in a wedding jamboree, kick-start this party with a long intro _ a clarinet pipes in tantalizingly at 1.02 mins _ only to dive into a steady groove that helps mould a cheeky confession, “People never change, but I will ‘cause I never give a xxck”, and then moves on to philosophizing. “I have washed away, my sins. So I never gotta face consequences…”
Being upfront and unafraid is PCRC’s hallmark. Hence, Foolmuse, (Kartik Sundareshan) with its edgy feel and a seductive, sing-along chorus fits in well, thanks to the weaving in of some excellent drum patterns that enhance the dream-like ambience and work as an apt precursor to the next song. The brilliance of 21C (Sawhney, Dhruv Bhola) is in its simplicity. Enhanced by a languorous bass groove and the casual thrashing of the cymbals, the song declares: “But in the music, oh, is when I’m perfect. And when I am perfect, oh everything is”.
This is an album of 13 sparkling songs and more than lives up to its outsized ambition. Black And White hooks on to some ’80s dance tropes to “find ourselves” while Something About You with its delicious acoustic guitar and serenading horn pairs well with Just Another Love Song (Kartik, Rohit Gupta) and its piano, both meditative slow burns on love and its elusiveness. I Deny Me (Dhruv) is sparse, a melodious tune propped by guitar strums; Seed is a bouncy exposition of what was and could have been while Control Room, with its flute interludes, feels more India than the rest. Connexion and Beautiful Life play out the finale, one with a flourish and the other gently fading out with ruminations on life.
Together, these songs, all unique in their own shades, are representative of PCRC’s music, always a revelation about the boundaries, musical and thematic, it manages to cross so seamlessly within and beyond the scope of contemporary pop. Their oeuvre is for the world, with a touch of India now and then, here and there. Maybe that explains their following abroad, a growing tribe of fans that ensured their 2023 tour of 29 sold out concerts in 25 cities of the US and 12 concerts in 12 cities of Europe/UK were monster successes.
A still from the video of Suddenly.
Suddenly is by far the new album’s tour de force, a story in tune about loss, memories and infinite gratitude; an autobiographical journey Sawhney undertakes once again after the beautiful, Remain In Me (Bismillah). In Suddenly, he is looking into his heart again, this time also mining the deep recesses of his mind to bravely unveil an ode to his late father and the mother who has held his hand all along. The music, a guitar-clarinet mélange, works wonders as it traverses his life’s journey. “I am losing you from my mind as I grow older too. Your memories are the only peace, the place I own. These songs I sing are the only way to make you listen.” More of a conversation than poetry, this is a song that’s sure to resonate even among the most die-hard of stoics.
Beta, for all the air of new-age flippancy that surrounded its release _ the name was chosen by a draw of lots, delightfully, I must add, by the six-month-old son of a band member _ is a musical experience to be cherished, in true PCRC style, in multiple ways. Listen to the double album song after song, as records are meant to be listened to, and allow Messrs Suryakant Sawhney (vocals, guitar), Karan Singh (drums), Dhruv Bhola (bass, samples), Rohit Gupta (guitars, horn, woodwind) and Kartik Sundareshan (guitars, horn, woodwind) to take you on a layered ride. Alternatively, choose the tracks at random. All you need to do is hop on to this juggernaut of ideas, of serenading vocals, of dazzling horns and keys, subtle guitars, shimmering cymbals, and the one-off cacophonous dholak. And then, let the music play.
