Two foreign returnees come back to the motherland for their tours - Karsh Kale and Anoushka Shankar. Karsh Kale will start his tour by headlining the York winery’s festival in Nashik, York Live on January 21, to perform his 2011 album, Cinema. Kale will be playing alongside fellow multi-instrumentalist Shri and Mumbai jam band, Something Relevant at the festival. He will play at Kitty Su, New Delhi on January 27 as well. Don’t worry, more dates will be announced soon.

Anoushka Shankar is playing seven dates in the country - Mumbai (Jan 13), New Delhi (Jan 15), Jaipur (Jan 19), Chennai (Jan 20), Bangalore (Jan 22), Guwahati (Feb 02), and Kolkata (Feb 04). She is touring to promote her new flamenco-influenced album Traveller. Tickets for her gigs range from Rs 500 to Rs 10,000 a pop.

Next week, we see Chennai glowing with pride as they host the Chennai Global Music Festival. A venerable feast of international and local musicians will take the stage including Susheela Raman, Junkyard Groove, Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets, and a reunion of Chennai trio Null Friction. The stage is also set for collaborations between musicians from all across the globe with the cream of Chennai talent. For example, percussionist Selvaganesh is featured throughout the festival collaborating with the likes of composer and clarinet player Shankar Tucker and six other virtuoso’s on day one; Swedish guitarist Mattias Eklundh, vocalist Uma Shankar, and singer Mahesh Vinayakram (who performed with Dub FX in Blue Frog, Mumbai last month) on day two; with drumming pro Ranjit Barot, and bassist/vocalist TM Stevens on day three. The festival is happening at Express Avenue grounds, Chennai on January 13, 14, and 15.

Acclaimed Chennai violinist, conductor, and composer Dr L Subramaniam brings Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival for the twentieth year running with performances by musicians spanning five continents. The lineup includes his wife and singer Kavita Krishanmurti Subramaniam, his son and violinist Ambi Subramaniam along with Senegalese kora master Solo Cissokho, Japanese-American koto player Miya Masaoka, and Tunisian singer and oud player Dhafer Youssef. The tour started in Bangalore today (Jan 7), and will move on to Chennai (Jan 9), Ahmedabad (Jan 11), Mumbai (Jan 13), Pune (Jan 14), Trivandrum (Jan 15), and Kollam (Jan 16).

Post-punk indie rock act from Chennai, Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets will play their debut gig at Blue Frog, Mumbai on January 10 along with Sid and Arman, as well as Blackstratblues. The band is the solo project of Kishore Krishna who’s debut album Snakeism was one of Indiecision’s top five Indian indie albums in 2010. We welcome him with open arms and wait eagerly to hear him perform his 2011 album, Dead Loops (get a better idea of what we’re talking about here).

Angaraag Mahanta aka Papon is out with his debut Hindi album internationally on January 10. He is plotting an album launch tour in India starting with Blue Frog in Delhi (Jan 11), Blue Frog in Mumbai (Jan 12), Bongaigaon in Assam (Jan 19), and moving on to Sulafest in Nashik (Feb 4), and Jorhat in Assam (Feb 18). Just last month Papon collaborated with percussionist Bickram Ghosh, and Scottish singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni under the moniker Troikala to put out an album later this year.

Bookmark this post for more hot gigs as they get announced. For a full listing of gigs around the country, check out our gigs page!

In its maiden year, the extended line-up unfolded over the four days in the very ambitious venue of the highest plateau in the world – Leh. Considering the fact that over 60 artists traveled from across the globe (Terracotta – Portugal, Gateways – Switzerland, Anna Van Reil – New Zealand, Bauchklang – Austria, Rodney Branigan – Canada, Talvin Singh  – UK, Ortal Pelleg – Israel, David Swarupe – Italy) and far reaches of the nation as well (Rajasthan Roots – Rajasthan, Mahesh Vinaykram and Vedant Bharadwaj – Chennai, Shaa’ir + Func and Tribal Flora – Mumbai, Soulmate – Shillong) to congregate with local legends (Rahul Sharma, Ali Mohammad – monks who sings the blues, and Castaways – local rock band as generic as they sound) there was reason enough to pack and head to the mountains.

August 28 to 31 were dates booked over the pasteuring and flat land, situated on the banks of the Indus River that hosts the annual historic festival of Sindhu Darshan each year for the people of Ladakh. Located around 8kms before Leh between the hamlets of Shey and Chagmanslor, the venue was perfect to create a medley of traditional and the contemporary – in terms of culture and music. The organizers couldn’t have picked a more fitting location considering their lineup including artists that border the divide between yesterday and tomorrow. And the fact that artificial stages and permanent arches would make for the ambient environment of the little land, enclosed between high peaks and building infrastructure, was particularly endearing.

Two stages were set-up, the Nyima that ran acoustic gigs and the main stage, the Skarma that pulled power for the headlining acts each evening. Tents scattered around the property were supposed to give a lesson in local Ladakhi art and craft, assisted and spearheaded by Rob from the Mad Show on Pogo and a Film Tent that would screen movies through the day courtesy Sapna Shahani, noted filmmaker.

But overriding the minimal crowd walk-ins, considering how most walking in wore volunteer badges, the total number of some 200 a day who managed to attend the confluence came for the love, peace and the music. Only this was a literal cosmosis of castaway firang bikers and hippies who were willing to dance and trip to everything that had a melodic sound and of course out-of-towners who didn’t mind the idea of the confluence. Celebrity spotting was easy. Purab Kohli and Vasundhara Das seemed to have flown in for a bit of the artists’ haven. But more than a tight stage-to-stage scrambling, The LC was a bass line of loosely connected dots. The artists were seen mostly hanging out like it was an open mic night of sorts and in between the many power failures (Leh has its concurrent blackouts), the best part of the festival were the instant  jam sessions that broke out in between the shows.

And amidst the mediocre and the awkward, the truly notable performances of Shaa’ir + Func, Vedant Bharadwaj, Rajasthan Roots, Tribal Flora, David Swarupe and Ortal Palleg and of course Soulmate clearly stood out. On opening night, the CM of J&K Omar Abdullah arrived to see Talvin Singh and Rahul Sharma open the fest as the headlining act. There seemed to be the promise of better things to come. “I am excited to be here and to be a part of a cultural fest like this. I promise you these young minds will bring in more and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make this work,” he cheekily opined. Chering Dorjay, chairman of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, promised much more in years to come, as ministers tend to do.

There was even unseasonal rain that threatened to disrupt the last day of the confluence, that managed to be saved by a set by Bauchklang who were gasping for breath but threw in a neat performance accompanied by Suchet Malhotra, Vasundhra Das and a jam partner in Harsha from Hyderabad. True to their performances, they closed the Ladakh Confluence over a merger of arms aloft in pandemonic trance.

The organizers in Rayna Jhaveri and Swaati Langeh hoped to have had a better crowd gathering and a tighter show, but excusing the many structural breakdowns, LC was true to its namesake. It was a big jam space in the middle of the mountains and the often idled musician mingled amongst the crowds, invited people on staged, jammed with nu and new inspiration. So what if the locals mostly eluded, except for on day three when the local favourites in Soulmate made sure the discounted Rs. 600 per ticket for the locals, made for a great attendance. Experimental bands in Gateways even saw a bit of the rock fan angst you run into at campus gigs. But the genius in impromptu shows, especially in Rodney Branigan’s appearance three nights of the four made for much entertainment.

The highlight of the festival was the daily Drum Circle organized by ace percussionist Roberto Narain and Priyanka Blah from Tempo Tantrick. In the middle of the expansive field post sunset, the duo would light a bonfire and pass a rhythmic instrument. They’d direct us to a melody and we were all musicians. The confluence made us that in Leh.

This was the scene over the four days. Sunset would gave away to dusk, dusk to twilight, the impenitent tropical pyrexia cooled slightly, but the temperature of the crowd was rising. You would have to be a very dull person – a snob, or a sad cynic – not to enjoy this show. The sound is of symphonic scale, and of course there is the spectacle, especially here, on and off stage – the sight of fans, arms aloft, singing every word of every song.

Follow our coverage of The Ladakh Confluence: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 (was largely rained out)

Day one at most new festivals read hiccups. And more so when it’s a confluence at the highest plateau in the world. The Ladakh Confluence popped its cherry on Friday, August 28. Things that were supposed to go off to a flying start were temporarily halted by a missing generator. But by 4pm, things were on a roll. With major changes in the lineup, owing to the fact that the main stage couldn’t be set up on time, two songwriters watched the sun go lower into the Indus river and Himalayas.

The venue for the fest is the historical sight where the Sindhu Darshan takes place each year with towering arches and stages giving an festive ambience to the place. The 200 odd people present at the venue were a mix of castaways, hippies, Mumbaiites (organisers, VJs and TV presenters), and northern plain Punjabis (loads of them) who crowded the local population. Precisely why when the time to groove came, they all yelled. Vedant Bharadwaj, Chennai’s Bhakti Bob Dylan, was the first to strike a wave of emotion. His own rendition of Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changing’ being the most soulful follwed by learning from Kabir’s Dohas and Namdev. New Zealand’s folk rocker Anna Van Riel sat barefoot with her entourage of instruments – a six string, Hawaiian Lehuaukulele (version of a Banjo) and a New Zealand duck horn made for her eclectic music. A true hippy, she sang stories of her many travels and conquests over man and road. The firangs in the crowd found their true Mama on stage and jived to her melodies.

An impromptu guitar work routine by Rodney Branigan seemed idyllic at sunset. The harmonics and rhythms maverick held two guitars like toys and sucked some air, to watch the sun go down and have all present screaming. “Phew! I’m out of air. I’ll go and crash now,”  he sighed at dusk. Apart from an orginial, he sang ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles and the one-man-band’s rendition was a promise of much to look forward to  in the coming days.

The unrelenting sun, and big curtain fell, when the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Omar Abdullah, arrived with his entourage of ministers who watched Talvin Singh, Rahul Sharma and vocalist Mahesh Vinayakram jam with their limited sound systems. Talvin’s fancy loops wouldn’t play because of the technical difficulties faced earlier, but the classical jam was efficient enough.

The day was saved more by the locale than the events in it. Here’s hoping day two really brings more noise.