Indian melody, rhyme is fascinating: Clean Bandit

The members of Grammy Award-winning British electronic music band Clean Bandit, on a short trip to India for a collaboration with Indian singer Benny Dayal, have said the elaborate and intricate rhythm structure of Indian music really fascinates them.

The band arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday for a collaboration for Tuborg OPEN, a music platform that will see the star producers go on a journey of musical and cultural discovery.

Clean Bandit has collaborated with several musicians like MARINA, Demi Lovato, Jess Glynne, Anne Marie, Sean Paul of different genres.

Asked about a distinct element they find in Indian music, Jack Patterson, one of the members, told IANS: "I think the rhythm structure of Indian music is quite intricate and one takes time to get a hold on that. It is in fact intriguing for me. We will get to learn that too a while into the process. Also, the melody of Indian music is very different and fascinating."

What is Clean Bandit planning to bring to the table with Benny?

Benny said: "Honestly, creating music is not a job where we can predict what exactly would the music coming out be like. As artistes, we start our day on a great morning with some of the great musical inspirations in mind. We let the creativity flow, and very interesting ideas come to our mind, and we try them out to create a piece of music."

"Yes, I think we are in that initial stage where things are not so defined to say that this is how the song will come out," added Luke Patterson.

Some of the best songs happen so quickly that they are not even planned, said Grace Chatto, the singer of the band, whose song "Rather be" won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording in 2015.

"Once we collaborated with the American singer Julia Michaels; Jack and Luke wrote the song in 43 minutes. It was on the timer so we know how much time we took, but yes, at times a song gets created within that short a time. And then there are times when we took months to create the magic," she added.

Before entering the studio here to start jamming, all three band members -- Grace, Jack and Luke -- took out time to explore Mumbai.

Grace said: "It is amazing to be here in Mumbai. We tried some really delicious food. This is the first time I tried a delicacy called dosa and I am almost addicted to it. It is so flavourful and I loved it."

"We went to rail station, nicely designed, quite Victorian style... It was so crowded and people were hopping in and hopping out from those trains. In fact I was trying to shoot a slow-motion video but I couldn't get it," Jack said.

Grace was quick to add: "That is because I couldn't hop at the right time to get in... That is an art I guess the passengers know."

They also went to the Crawford Market, where they bought some Indian spices.

"It was a little crowded, and (there were) so many welcoming people," Jack added.

Benny, known for some hit Bollywood songs including "Pappu can't dance", "Kaise mujhe" and "Ude dil befikre", is excited about his collaboration with Clean Bandit.

"Not even in my dream did I think that I will get a chance to create music with them."

"I think since our style is different, while jamming we want to let it flow without having any preconceived notions of each other's style. That is the fun of collaboration, I guess," Grace added.

Benny said he would share some genres of Indian music with the band. "This is what we wanted, the cultural exchange," he added.

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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