In 2012, at the Guitare en scene festival in France, Susmit Sen met the English rock and blues guitarist, Bernie Mardsen. Mardsen later came to India and performed two shows with Sen and, enthused by the results, decided to collaborate with him on a composition that had been brewing in his mind.
“Ocean to Ocean”, the track that resulted from it, is also the name of the first album by Susmit Sen Chronicles. Formed in 2012, the band features Susmit Sen on guitars, Varun Gupta on tabla, Anirban Ghosh as bassist, Nikhil Vasudevan as percussionist, Sudhir Rikhari and Amit Sharma as vocalists.
The album, which comprises seven tracks, is Sen’s first since his departure from Indian Ocean, a band that he co-founded and played in for over two decades. Speaking of the changes, Sen says, “It’s a new band, it is a new journey...it is a sea change. But music remains the binding factor.” Incidentally, Indian Ocean released its latest album Tandanu last month.
“One cannot verbalise this, but there is more of a freedom as an individual, in the fact that I am being able to do what I want to do,” the guitarist adds. “There is a different kind of energy, a different kind of an expression. So it’s a nice journey.”
While Sen brought out a solo album in 2012, titled Depths of the Ocean , he could only see himself in a band. “When I think of compositions, I do not think of just me playing guitar, so there has to be a band. I think the synergy happens when you have a band.”
Explaining the dynamics of the band, Sen, its eldest member, says, “I try and give them a complete free hand as far as possible. The basic structures and composition I give to them, and they come up with the basslines, beat pattern and harmonies.”
While work on the album started around October last year, there are compositions that go further back in time. For the track called “Bongingon”, which was released as a single recently, “the main riff I started playing about 10 years back; it was named by my brother who heard that riff and thought that it goes ‘bongingon bongingon’,” Sen remembers. This song also marks a collaboration with Hungarian accordion maestro Orosz Zoltan.
“Neptune's Dance”, “Uprising”, “8 ½” , “Neo Swing” and “Serendipity” are the other tracks. “The three numbers that have lyrics in them are somehow connected to some sense of freedom. Apart from that they have very different flavours, different textures and moods,” he explains.
While leaving Indian Ocean might have freed him to pursue the direction he wishes to musically, it has also taken away some of the comforts of its brand name. “Susmit Sen as an entity not as big as Indian Ocean but that is something I knew when I left the band. It will take some time, the music will speak, and there will be another journey,” says Sen, confidently.
(The album will be launched in association with digital partners >songdew.com in the first week of August)
