Exclusive Premiere: Bengaluru Composer Dhruv Kumar Teams Up with Skrat frontman on ‘Moneyshot’

Dhruv Kumar (left) with producer Sridhar Varadarajan. Photo: Janardhan Rao

You can tell a lot about a musician from his music player of choice. Bengaluru-based composer-guitarist Dhruv Kumar is clearly all for the reliable ones. He says when he talks about his music, “I often told myself that I seem to oscillate towards anything that seems to be spinning on my record player or my Winamp, and my writing reflects the same.”

Kumar ”“ co-founder of erstwhile Bengaluru-based parody rockers Live Banned ”“ has aptly named his debut offering Pieces That Do Not Fit, for his genre-jumping approach that is aided by sparkling voices from Chennai and Bengaluru rock. First up, his anime-inspired dubstep-meets-swing “Moneyshot” featuring Skrat frontman Sriram T.T., which comes together with an animated music video centred around a love story, a deal with the devil, zombies and samurai combat conceptualized by Bengaluru video agency Digimafia.

Interestingly, Kumar worked with his Live Banned replacement, guitarist-producer Sridhar Varadarajan, on Pieces That Do Not Fit, already having singers in mind when the songs were composed for the six-track EP. The only exception was psychedelic/blues rock band Parvaaz’s frontman Khalid Ahamed, who features on “Bahar,” which Kumar says was composed together.

The EP — which will be released track by track — also includes vocalist Mana Santhanam (on the trippy “Creatures of Habit”), Live Banned vocalist Amrit Rao (the emotional “Amma”), psych rock band White Mug’s Mathew (the layered and lush “You”) and pop/R&B singer Alexis D’Souza (the morose opening track “Skin”). Kumar says, “Alexis kick started this whole thing and I can’t thank her enough, because it kind of made me believe that I can have a set of songs all recorded and done.”

Watch the video for “Moneyshot” below. Album artwork by Gaurav Basu.