Bengaluru’s Another Kind of Green Bring Uplifting Blues on ‘Plain Good Feeling’

Another Kind of Green (AKOG) have had two singles out so far – “Hey Polly!” and “Captain Couch Potato” – but it’s only now that they’re releasing the first song they wrote together, “Plain Good Feeling.”

Written in 2016 when the six-member Bengaluru rock band came together, vocalist Shikha Chandrashekhar says this particular song – also the title track for their debut album – “created its own niche” in their setlist, becoming a live staple. The energetic, cheerful song is an all-out blues number, from smoky keyboard parts to screeching guitar leads, steadily built rhythms and of course, Chandrashekhar’s soaring vocals.

Unlike most blues jams, “Plain Good Feeling” packs it all in within three and a half minutes. It’s what the band calls “FunRock,” perhaps in a bid to describe their live performances. “Our shows and our music are defined by an element of pure fun and energy, and ‘Plain Good Feeling’ sums up what we and our audience feel whenever we play our songs,” Chandrashekhar says.

Comprising eight tracks, AKOG’s forthcoming album (which is currently in the mixing process) brings together other influences apart from the blues, including hard rock, punk and modern groove (“Monkey In the Middle”). There was a music video in the works for “Plain Good Feeling,” plus more singles and gigs running up to releasing the album, but the current national lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic has halted band activity. Chandrashekhar says, “While the situation did mess up our original plans for the song, it did work out well that we had finished all the major recordings way before things became the way they are right now.”

A sensible move at this point has been to focus on promoting their material to reach an audience outside Bengaluru and even India. “For now, our plan is to mobilize our efforts into promoting our music on social media and streaming platforms so as to increase our reach beyond the country,” the vocalist says.

Listen to “Plain Good Feeling” below. Stream on Apple Music and JioSaavn.