The night heavens have opened over Chennai. A handful of people has strolled into The Park’s lobby while gentle jazz streams through the airwaves. The rains and the music strains hush though as Bruce Lee Mani’s soaring, guttural vocals take centre stage, singing of bygone times when it was illegal to play music in Bangalore’s bars. It’s a voice that reminds you of winds gushing through open skies, and it’s been singing for 17 years now. In the nearly two decades that Thermal and a Quarter have been around, quietly pioneering paths in India’s independent music scene, they’ve toured the world several times over, opened for bands like Deep Purple and Jethro Tull, won numerous awards, survived two line-up changes, and written five acclaimed albums.
At the cusp of recording their sixth now, there’s a little more grey on drummer Rajeev Rajagopal’s beard than when he first met Bruce in Christ College, and Bruce’s own mad mop of curls sees tamer days. But that deadly mix of music they call Bangalore rock — a filtered brew of the blues, jazz, funk, rock and roll — sounds better than ever before. As yet untitled, the new album draws from their insider experience of thriving in India’s fledgling indie English industry, from the times of few sponsors, stages and patrons, to the present boom age where everyone from nascent festival organisers to obscure television channels wants a finger in the indie pie. “The way the scene has progressed here is very uniquely Indian; no other country sees this crazy diversity, from the artsy-originals-only, or covers-only, bands, to Bollywood-obsessed masses, venues that care more about food and beverage, deeply integrity-driven artistes and those in it just for the money...the scene here is a beast all its own, and this album gives voice to each of the strange characters that people it,” says Bruce.
One of the new songs Thermal premiered at The Park is titled ‘The Scene’, a “bitter-sweet”, hymn-like ditty that compares indie English music to selling ‘sushi in an idli shop’; another dwells on Indian indie artistes’ proclivity to certain intoxicant brands; a third, ‘Dig Those Chicks’ remembers a time when shows were once full of just ‘brown brothers’ and now welcomes happily their female counterparts; and ‘Medicated Electronic Dance’ (MED) comments tongue-in-cheek on our current electronic dance music (EDM) obsession, replete with synth-processed, EDM-like vocals on loop. Musically, the album will launch Thermal’s evolved sound that now features their young, new bassist and backing vocalist Leslie Charles, who they first overheard jamming Jaco Pastorius in a music store. Leslie brings to the table his McCartney-reminiscent grooves that only strengthen Thermal’s already rhythm-driven spine.
Watch the new Thermal on stage though, and they’re smooth as free-flowing water. Bodies beat to time, playing off each other’s brilliance, still surprised at the others’ moments of stage inspiration after all this time together. It’s a “subliminal tightness” that comes especially from their last year of gigging across world stages, most of all at a 50-shows-in-60-days tour across Europe, including the prestigious, month-long Edinburgh Fringe festival. “What the Fringe gave us, playing to audiences who’d never heard of us, was the ability to perform anywhere, from cavernous churches to stages with no gear, and for absolutely anyone,” says Rajeev. Their stories of this experience feed into their first film, which looks at that “peculiar, distorted reality that artistes live in,” says Bruce. In the presence of hundreds of artistes from across the globe, both famous and unknown, performing before armies of crowds or just a smattering of people, Thermal learnt further of the essence of artiste living. “It helps to know you’re not the only struggling lunatic around! There are plenty of us out there; so it’s cool,” laughs Rajeev.
Thermal’s own journey has spanned humble beginnings, starting with their first, Bangalore IT-industry-inspired album thermalandaquarter.com in 2000, to 2012’s three-disk omnibus of an effort that set their sound in stone, Three Wheels Nine Lives , altogether over a 130 songs. Their musical tastes have morphed over time (jazz-head Bruce is now listening to metal and Rajeev’s turned a Brubeck fan), and for six years now, they’ve self-run a music school, Taaqademy. “It’s a sustainable model we’re encouraging for musicians. Not only does the teaching keep you challenged and technically sound, there’s no better environment for a musician to be in, surrounded by the best of young talent constantly trying new things,” says Bruce. Despite juggling administration, syllabi, salaries, their own gigs and rehearsal time, Bruce says their song-writing techniques haven’t changed much. Their music is still born at the lyric stage first, arrives in his head in “bulk orders”, and grows into their own animals as the band infuses ideas in. The new album, with material just a year old now, Rajeev says, is merely the next logical step in their musical journey. “As always, it deals with the worlds we’re experiencing. It’s very real, very honest, very us, very Thermal.”
