Drone Attack: Mumbai Instrumental Metal Band Pangea on New Material

Pangea guitarists Shadaab Kadri and Akshay Rajpurohit (from left). Photo: Monisha Ajgaonkar

For guitarists Akshay Rajpurohit and Shadaab Kadri, going from a home re­cording setup to Mumbai’s Yash Raj Films [YRF] Studio to track their instrumental/ prog metal band Pangea’s new song was like entering another world. Says Rajpu­rohit, who also plays with Mumbai hard­core band Scribe, “It’s an ideal thing, for a musician. You just wake up and go to the studio and plug in. Everything is ready. It’s like calling a pastry chef to a candy shop.” As part of the Soundathon work­shop series with YRF recording engineer and producer Shantanu Hudlikar, Pan­gea spent five days recording and mixing their upcoming single, “This Is NG, Tak­ing!” in August.

Rajpurohit, who started writing more drone and prog material while working on Scribe’s 2008 debut album Confect, teamed up with Kadri, a close friend and former bassist of the band and guitarist-producer Kuber Sharma. Although the trio released their first album Snails are when I was young in November 2011, it was only in June 2012 that the band made their live debut at the Rolling Stone Metal Awards. Currently, the band also com­prises drummer Jai Row Kavi [formerly of metallers Pin Drop Violence] and bassist Krishna Jhaveri [from prog metal band Skyhar­bor and alt metallers Goddess Gagged], who have been part of the writing process, contrib­uting on their live single “The Life of Epson Printer” and other upcoming material. Says Kadri about their latest song, “We wrote it in the span of a month [in July]. Kuber had a rough riff idea which he sent us and we spent time in the jam room adding stuff.” The sound of “This is NG, Taking!” like a lot of Pangea’s music, includes drone, progressive metal and synthesizer-led electronic music. Says Kadri, “It’s more guitar-centric, but it has that trademark synth/drone sound and is almost six min­utes long.” Rajpurohit adds that the song is “less chaotic” compared to earlier Pan­gea material. Says Rajpurohit, “It’s a fla­vor of what we’re trying to do next ”“ make it more organic and involve everybody in the band.”

The band is working on more materi­al. Says the guitarist, “The album is already written, we’re planning it so that everybody will sit on them [songs] and add their own flavor.” They may not get another chance to record at YRF like they did as part of Soun­dathon, but the band says that the experience has convinced them to want to go back, at least to record live drums. Says Raj­purohit, “The rest of the guitars and stuff will be digital recording, and it’s not as though we dislike it.”

With “This is NG, Taking!” slat­ed to be mastered and released in October, Pangea are also plan­ning to get back on the road with more live shows, even as Rajpuro­hit and Scribe ready their own third full-length album Hail Mogambo for release. With shows confirmed at the Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Delhi and Bengaluru in No­vember, Pangea will premiere “This Is NG, Taking!” to new audiences. Says Kadri, “A lot of people have wanted to see us play at NH7, so it’s good to be playing there.”

This article appeared in the September 2014 issue of ROLLING STONE India.
Listen to “This Is NG, Taking”