Advaita Head To South Africa

Advaita

Advaita is all set to woo audiences in South Africa this week. The eight-piece band will play at the Bassline club in Newtown on September 8^th and at Eldos Arts and Jazz festival on September 9^th, as part of The Shared History Festival (TSHF) in South Africa. “We were hoping to tour last year, but it somehow didn’t work out then. I’m glad this worked out well,” says Anindo Bose, keyboard player of Advaita.

The Delhi band will play songs from their debut album Grounded in Space and sophomore album The Silent Sea at the Eldos Arts and Jazz Festival. “It’ll be great performing for an audience of 20,000 people. We hope to share our music with them and are taking our albums with us,” says Bose. The band’s set list will include tracks such “Rasiya”, “Ghir Ghir,” “Durga,” “Mo Funk” and “Ga Ma Pa Ni Pa”. Says Bose, “We want to present the Indian elements of our music. The idea is to showcase all the flavors of Advaita.” Teamwork Productions, which programmed Advaita’s show at the three-day festival, Kala Utsav, in Singapore in 2009, has been instrumental in organizing Advaita’s South Africa shows as well. Advaita’s South Africa performances are significant also because they will share the stage with world class jazz musicians such as Don Laka and Blondie & Pappa at TSHF. Mumbai-based folk pop band Kailasa helmed by Hindi film vocalist Kailash Kher and violinist L Subramaniam will also perform at TSHF.

Once they return, Advaita, which was formed in 2004, will celebrate eight years of making music with their annual “birthday” gig at India Habitat Centre on September 23^rd. “We plan to do something special this year, but we’ll work out the details once we are back,” says Bose. Advaita will also perform at the Delhi and Bengaluru editions of Bacardi NH7 Weekender this year.