Loy and Ehsaan Team Up For New Blues Band Apostrophe

Composers Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa, of Bollywood trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, have never made a secret of their love for the blues and the duo are all set to make another foray into the genre with their new band Apostrophe. The band, which also features Shazneen Arethna on vocals, Karl Peters on bass and Debashish Banerji on drums, was formed when they received an offer for a corporate show. “We’ve been sitting on the idea for a while, Loy and I,” says Noorani, “and it just all came together for the show so we thought we’d take it forward.” The band’s music will be a mix of “funky blues and jazz with soul,” says Noorani, adding that the band have already written four songs together. “It will be a while before we play another show, we need to rehearse and hash this out, but it will happen.”

Last year Noorani had hinted at the revival of Fuzzy Duck, a jam band originally put together by Zubin Balaporia, with a new lineup that included Uday Benegal, Aditi Singh Sharma and Mendonsa. There was even talk that the band would perform at the recent Mahindra Blues Festival, but it fell through. “The timing was all wrong and it just wasn’t happening so we abandoned it,” says Noorani but expressed optimism that Apostrophe wouldn’t meet the same fate.