Guwahati based ‘Lateral’– Crashing right into the Indie stratosphere!
By Kaushik Jai Barua | March 27, 2019
Lateral will bring their otherworldly eclecticism to the fore with their upcoming releases.
There's an undercover mysticism to Guwahati based lateral's music, an eeriness that blows up every time you are paying attention and dissipates every time to you try to put a finger on it. Layers of Guitars and loops wash over twinkling melodies while lyrics sung in both English and Assamese lock into a distinctive groove section. It's an interesting mix of sounds, which the brothers from Assam have made their own since they exploded onto the scene about two years ago. "They have always pushed the envelope in as much as their palette of genres is concerned. I dont think they fit into a genre. I look forward to hosting them real soon." says Rupjyoti Roy from the Shillong chapter of Sofar Sounds.
ALSO READ:
With their latest single, Noi, released on Singer-songwriter Ipsita Bharali's channel, the duo have established themselves for their enigmatic presence both in the studio and with a recent performance in the first edition of the prestigious Drift Music Festival- on stage with the Singer-Songwriter from Guwahati. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Amitabh Barooa's phrases are often filtered through a haze of reverb, Producer and Guitarist Siddharth Barooa fragments these phrases into a collage of sounds. His method to making this collage reflects the wide array of musical influences and styles, blending an almost old school recipe of songwriting with pixelated drums and grooves on singles like 'Hepaah' and 'What if this is the only time'.
ALSO READ:
On their latest single 'Noi' collaborating with Ipsita Bharali, this eerie mix of styles comes to the fore referencing a new era in the Assamese Independent music circuit- this is a single that nods to Northeast India's shift of preference from just traditional forms to more experimental terrains. It's the first of its kind so the combination is working well with audiences. "There's a huge potential to the kind of music they have been working on. I don't even understand the language they sing in- but it's a sound unheard of in the scene before." Says Aditya Ghosh from The Indian Music Diaries who recently saw them perform at Drift Music festival in Guwahati.
Speaking of their creative process in an exclusive interview with The Northeast Today-Y! in their studio, Siddharth Barooa says: "It's not a process, it's become a habit of sorts- the way we write our songs- I think it's something we need to do rather than just follow a set method. This April will see the release of a five song EP from the act and we will follow that with an EP in August again because there's just too much material we have written over the last one year that continues to be unreleased. It's not something we only want to do, it has become imperative we start putting all of this material out into the open for it to reach out to its audience."
It is usually sounds which dare to stray from the well beaten path which change the course of music from one era to the next. It would not be wrong to say that the fresh effervescence of Lateral could very well herald a new phase in Indian independent music and perhaps much more.
For more updates on the latest music scene of Northeast India, follow TNT Y!
The writer can be reached at kaushik@thenortheasttoday.com. He can be followed @kaushikjaibarua on all social media
