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!

The event will take place on the grounds of the biggest mall in the city, Express Avenue, across three days, and will have performances from 24 international and local artists. The range of genres at the festival range from rock, electro-pop, grunge and hip hop to fusion, folk, jazz, blues, and country. The lineup features local Chennai acts like ‘Folk You’ rockers Junkyard Groove (check out our review of their gig at Mood Indigo here), fledgling rock/blues band Grey Shack, indie-rockers Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets, jazz/funk band Groove #3, and grunge band Null Friction (interesting titbit about this Chennai trio – their gig at 1pm on January 15 is a reunion gig, their first performance together since 2010. They plan to put out an EP in March).

Chennai will also welcome an array of  artists from across the globe including France, Sweden, Reunion Islands, USA, and Malaysia along with collaborations with seasoned musicians from Chennai, Bengal, and Rajasthan.

The festival is the brainchild and the efforts of festival director, Eddie Prithiviraj of event and artist management company Exodus, along with Sujit D’Souza, founder of Lemontree media. Prithiviraj tells us about what he hopes for the Chennai event

At the festival the lineup is good, there are huge names that are coming over. The whole point is creating a future, the future of what the festival is going to carry, that is 2013, which I am already planning for.

Chennai has great potential for musicians, and though the city is a little conservative and they may not venture out much, unless something is happening in Bangalore and then they venture out (laughs)… What I’m trying to do is bring in a real festival with the maximum we have got for Chennai.

Lineup

January 13
Grey Shack
TH Subash Chandran, Ganesh Kumar, S Harikrishnan, Shankar Tucker, Colin Hinton, Michael Gam, and HN Bhaskar.
Vinayakram
George Brooks, Dr Lalitha and Band
Chinnapoonu, Karthik, Raju Baul with Paul Jacob
Jonas Hellborg and Selvaganesh
Junkyard Groove

January 14
Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets
Ziskakan
Piano Chat
Mattias, Selvaganesh, Uma Shankar, and Mahesh Vinayakram
Paul Jacob and Blaaze
Vikku Vinayakram
Moongai
Susheela Raman

January 15
Groove #3 featuring Benny Dayal
Shruti
Null Friction
Mesparrow
Uma Shankar, Gino Bank and troupe
Bud McMuffin
TM Stevens, Ranjit Barot, and Selvaganesh
Indus Creed
El Manos
Mukhtiyar Ali, Chinnapoonu and Paul Jacob

Ticket prices are available at Rs 200 to Rs 750, at the venue.

One of the highlights will be the big fusion collaboration on January 13, featuring clarinet player, Shankar Tucker. Check out his ‘O Re Piya/Rolling in the Deep’ mash up he did as part of his YouTube video series, The Shruti Box, below.

According to lead singer Shreyans Jha

The three of us have been been living in three different countries for the last three years. Writing songs over skype, punching out ideas via email, sitting on a Greyhound for 14 hours so we can jam for 2 hours and play a 45 minute set at a local pub is fine. But, the hope of coming back to India to play a few shows is what has kept the band alive. The hope of playing such a tour has kept the band alive. It’s finally happening, and we couldn’t have been happier. The 14-hour bus rides seem to be paying off, and we couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Null Friction are kicking off the Great Indian Summer Tour with at Blend, Taj Mount Road, on Wednesday (July 7th) at 8:00pm.

Dates

July 7th – Blend, Chennai
July 8th – Hard Rock Café, Hyderabad
July 15th – Hard Rock Café, Bangalore
July 22nd – Hard Rock Café, Mumbai
July 25th – The Basement, Kolkata
July 31st – JRO (Buck’s Theater), Chennai

Check out the music video for the song ‘Madras‘.

‘Madras’ is one of the highlights of the record; a moody turn from the band’s usual angsty self. The video, directed by Vasundhara Shankari, is comprised of 800 photographs put together in an interesting stop-motion concept that features the band and shots of their home city. It’s one of the better videos we’ve seen from an Indian band this year (but nothing like the best).

Here’s ‘Madras’.

Null Friction on MySpace

Kick off your gig week with Bauchklang at the Blue Frog on Tuesday. The Austrian beat boxers played a very well received gig at the venue last week and this is perhaps your last chance to see them in Mumbai for a while.

If you’ve already caught them (multiple times) previously, head to Hard Rock Cafe for Chennai alt-grunge act Null Friction. The southie trio  released their debut album Madras recently, which you can download for free (registration required) here.

Tough On Tobacco play Cafe Goa (Bandra) on Wednesday, July 22. They played the Blue Frog earlier this month. We were there.

New Delhi

The capital gets worthy gig-age this week.

Head to Mocha Bar on Wednesday, July 22 for Indigo Children. The alt-punk quartet play their first home gig after returning from a short UK tour courtesy the British Council SoundPad project.

Half Step Down continue their Thursday night residency at Attitude, Gurgaon. Expect material from their debut album Overtures To Outerspace. The band recently announced a whole bunch of nationwide tour dates supporting the release of the album.

Channel V Launchpad finalists Faridkot take over from HSD on Friday night at Attitude. We haven’t heard much from the band since they lost the Launchpad crown to Reverrse Polarity.

Head to the India Habitat Center on Saturday, July 25 as Swarathma perform for The YP Foundation’s seventh anniversary celebration.

Bangalore

Another weekend heavy gig week welcomes Bangalore.

Head to Bacchus on Thursday, July 23 for Shaa’ir + Func. The duo of Monica Dogra and Randolph Correia will perform an acoustic set that may feature material from their well previewed, coming third studio album.

If Bacchus is not your thing, head to Hard Rock Cafe for homeboys Thermal And A Quarter. The band promise a bunch of new originals and “fantastic Thermalized covers – including Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Cat Stevens et cetera”.

Junkyard Groove play at Opus Whitefield and Opus Vasanthnagar on Friday and Saturday. The Chennai alt-rockers will play material from their album 11:11 (bootleg) that they’re giving away for free via music service Gimmesound.

These are our gig picks for the week folks. Have one.