Peter Cat Recording Co To Release New Album By Year End

PCRC bassist Rohan Kulshreshtha, guitarist/keyboardist Anindya Shanker and frontman Suryakant Sawhney at the band's jampad (Photo: Asif Khan)

Pics: PCRC in the studio

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Peter Cat Recording Co, the four-member gypsy-folk/cabaret pop band based in Delhi, is currently in the studio working on their third album. We spoke to the band’s lead vocalist Suryakant Sawhney about their new album and road film.

 What’s keeping Peter Cat Recording Co. busy these days?

We’re currently in the midst of creating multiple music videos for a few songs from Sinema, Wall of Want and our next album. We’re also about to release our documentary (more of a film really) in June. You could say that this year has been about expanding PCRC into a film production house apart from just being a musical ensemble. A new website is in the works which would allow fans to buy our music from Amazon, iTunes etc, follow tours as well as subscribe to a new feature we currently call ‘Field Recordings’. More news on that later.  And oh yeah, obviously a new record.

Is the writing more a joint effort this time around or is it still just Suryakant at work?

The album is definitely more of a joint effort, but we’re still mainly building on lyrics and songs, which I write. This time around, our contributions are far more impactful though, as they’re influencing some of the songs to go in a completely different direction from what we may have previously planned. We record and re-record ideas and pieces on a daily basis and we mine these to form a new album. To keep it simple, yes, it will sound different but we don’t want to divulge as to how quite yet. That’s the exciting part.

When will you start releasing the new songs?

The fourth quarter of 2012 will bring a new PCRC album. That’s what we’ve told our shareholders anyway.

Tell us more about the band documentary.

Well, we did a tour last year where we drove down from Delhi and played gigs in Chennai, Bangalore, Goa, Mumbai, Pune and Chandigarh. The footage we’re using is mainly from that tour, but we’ve restructured it.

Since we shot it on a VHS cam it resembles a B-grade psychedelic horror flick – very Blair Witchy in certain parts. It’s rude, crass, and funny and at parts makes us look like complete assholes, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

You’ll get to see, among other things, us jamming with a strange Baba and his female escort in his Goan hut, foreigners dancing in hula hoops to psy-trance, us cuddling with puppies and some of our performances at various cities. It’s a filthy film and worth losing 50-odd minutes of your life over. A trailer will be out this weekend.

Here’s a video of Peter Cat Recording Co performing at Live From The Console in Mumbai: