Rock music and singari melam (percussion ensemble) make an unusual combination, but when Kochi rock band Chemmeen and Thrissur-based percussion ensemble Attamkala Samithi play together as ‘Chemmeen feat Attam’ there is unusual, unexpected harmony. Singari melam is high voltage percussion rhythm and movement based music with a large number of musicians. Marrying the two — the band with six member line-up and 15 members of the melam troupe was not easy.
“The challenge was matching the instruments with the chenda’s rhythmic pattern, which is basically sans shruthi and also matching its pace,” says Shalvin Abraham, bassist and one of the band members. Also, the c henda , as the tempo builds, tends to get loud. The tracks are composed in advance so that both bands can play with synchronicity.
The idea came to Chemmeen keyboardist Sajove Job; the band was composing a song for the St Mary’s Orthodox Church festival at Pazhanji near Kunnamkulam. Since high voltage singari melam is popular, Sajove thought of incorporating some of the elements
“The song was composed by us but we incorporated a part of the attam ( singari melam ) into the song for local flavour and it sounded good. That set Sajove thinking about performing together with the melam ensemble,” says Shalvin. They put forth the idea of performing more often to Attamkala Samithi, and they agreed. The initial show demanded 10 days practice; the practice sessions have been pared down to three-four days now.
Attamkala Samithi is one of the popular singari melam troupes of Thrissur with a huge fan following. The first fusion performance was at the kodiyettam (inauguration) of the church festival, which was a huge success. Since then they have played at numerous church and temple festivals, college functions and corporate shows, these are their primary events. A melam troupe has 24-30 members, but all percussionists do not perform with Chemmeen since performance spaces would be insufficient to accommodate 30-odd musicians on stage.
A Chemmeen-Attamkala Samithi performance usually has 15 melam artistes and six band members. The band members of Chemmeen, besides Sajove and Shalvin are Vijo Job (lead guitar), Jeo Jacob (drums), Vineeth Mohan (vocals) and Nidhin Raj (violin); Neethu Faizal and Vishnu Achari are guest vocalists.
Saneesh Attam, one of the founder-members of the Attamkala Samithi, enjoys the experience since it is different from their usual music, “The sound is different. While an attam piece has a lot more movement and steps, performing with Chemmeen doesn’t demand that many steps or moving around. Our steps match the rhythm sets that we compose for our performances.” The Attam ensemble comprises 16 chenda and eight of ilathalam (small cymbals). He agrees with Shalvin that chenda is louder than drums and that was initially a problem since the microphone played up the louder noise. During practice, they worked on the acoustics and found their balance with adjustments to the mic. Sarath Attam leads the attam line-up for the singari melam . They play popular songs including Malayalam folk songs and film numbers, especially popular are AR Rahman numbers.
Collaborating has worked well for both as attam fans get to listen to some rock music and vice versa for rock music fans, “it is the best of both worlds,” says Shalvin.
