A quiet guitar upright by a busy highway; young men huddled under a shack making music; bass drums by a wedding reception; and a shot of an ilathalam clashing — these are the first looks of Evolve’s online video series, The Artist . It is symbolic of what the series aims to capture: young, upcoming artistes within intimate creative spaces, giving the outside world a peek into their craft. “We’re doing nothing that the artistes themselves can’t do,” says Ashwin Gopakumar, founder of Evolve. “We’re just using the resources we have toward letting people know about young creators from Kerala.”
Pitched as a 10-episode season, featuring one troupe or personality each episode, The Artist was conceived as a medium to profile Kerala’s music bands alone. “As we began finding people and shooting their work; we realised that there were plenty of people out there, creating good work, who weren’t musicians,” says Vijay Nair, director of Evolve and editor of the series. Thus, The Artist grew to include dancers, painters, vocal percussionists, craftsmen, besides musicians.
The first season features acts such as singer-songwriter from Kochi Nikhil J. Menon, Malayalam rock band Kolam from Thiruvananthapuram, folk rock act Pathayam , funk/rock band Saptak , portrait artist Vishnu, a beatboxer and a robot dancer.
Set to release on December 8, with an episode each week varying in duration, Evolve says The Artist is special because its production encapsulates the feel of each creation. “We’ve shot each act in a new setting, designed to suit its character,” says cinematographer and photographer Antony B.M. “We’ve done field recordings for each group, thus imbibing the ambient sounds of the place shot in as well,” adds his colleague Jaffer Zadique.
Despite excessive rain and wind and other onsite troubles, there’s a surprise thrown in for regulars of Kerala’s music scene, as the bands will perform acoustic covers of their music. “We decided to do that because we want viewers to understand the process of creating art. When rock bands write their songs, at the early stage, it’s usually just someone strumming on a guitar and singing along. So for listeners, it’s a new experience to listen to the music they know, stripped down to its skeletal form,” says Ashwin.
This attention to design and detail is vital to everything Evolve does, says Vishnu Das, the team’s design head. The resolve is reflected in Evolve’s other passion — organising gigs across Kerala by bands from the State. At its recent concert by All the Fat Children in Kochi, the stage backdrop featured cut-outs of Pac-man, an 80s video game character that ate ‘Pac-dots’.“We did that because the group almost eats out at the people in its stage act,” explains Vishnu. “Bands world-over are associated with their signature design elements and we want to create the same for local bands,” adds Ashwin.
Evolve itself first came into the local music scene in 2010 in Thiruvananthapuram when Ashwin and his friend Ganesh Radhakrishnan organised an informal heavy-metal gig in Ganesh’s bedroom. To their surprise, several dozen people turned up, head-banged their hearts out and demanded more. The response led to the creation of the Trivandrum Rock Revolution (TRR) which conducted a gig a month for public at Purple Lounge in Thiruvananthapuram for a year. The initiative dissolved when Ashwin went abroad to study music business. Now armed with this theoretical knowledge, Ashwin hopes to continue with Evolve what started with TRR, fingers-crossed that sponsors and venue partners comply.
For now, Evolve is focussed on Kochi because of its audience in the transient tourist population and hardcore metal-heads in city colleges. “We’ve teamed up with hotel Highway Garden to do open-air concerts that will also double up as informal jam sessions, starting this December,” says Ashwin.
The new year promises Evolve’s largest project thus far — a crowd-funded music festival. “For starters, we’re hoping to sell t-shirts and accessories, the profits from which will fund a festival scheduled for March 2014,” says Kailash Gopakumar, who co-ordinates Evolve’s social media. From there on, the hope is that music lovers in the State will contribute toward conducting a festival showcasing their favourite acts. Ashwin is convinced that there is a vast audience for good music in Kerala, given that this is the birthplace of some of the country’s most popular bands and musicians. “Getting people to come to a concert is among the easiest parts of what we do. Once you get a good production together, the people will turn up!” Find Evolve and The Artist on www.youtube.com/tvevolve
