Happy Troopers

Abiogenesis is an act you have to catch in action at least once. What you make of them after that will obviously vary, but if you’re an old time rock & roller with a soft spot for Eighties-era anthems, the Naga quintet might give you something to think about. A lot of it has to do with the unique and strange bamhum, a wind instrument invented by the band’s founder Moa Subong (who also sings and plays the guitar and harmonica). “I was looking for a traditional melody instrument to accompany our originals, we were getting tired of playing covers,” Subong told Rolling Stone. “But most Naga instruments are percussive and I didn’t find anything that fulfilled our needs. So I decided to make one.” “At the same time I was looking for an instrument to help me bring innovation to traditional music and theatre,” added his wife, folk scholar and teacher Arenla Subong, who co-founded the band in which she sings and plays the bamhum. “He’d be home every day with his growing pile of bamboo. I never thought he’d get anywhere!” she said of the instrument, which is played by humming into a tiny hole in the side of a short length of bamboo fitted with a rattle.

I saw the band last month at the Romancing India’s North East festival at Delhi’s Akshara Theatre. The concert had its share of problems. Having hosted Soulmate out in the open amphitheatre the previous weekend, the proprietors of the theatre were arm-twisted by the hospital next door to shift the Abiogenesis gig to the tiny hundred-seat indoor theatre. With not enough space on stage, the band had to rely on the main speakers for monitors, which, alongwith an unfamiliar Delhi audience, set them off to a slightly nervy start. The absence of monitors also threw a couple of the more challenging bamhum solos a bit off-key, regrettably transporting from the sublime to the appallingly grating on occasion.

In the end, however, none of that seemed to matter. The band (completed by the Subongs’ son Imli on drums, bassist Moss and lead guitarist Toji) rolled through a set list rooted in the Wishbone Ash and Scorpions variety of sound but with a heavy textural psychedelia flavour and a hint of the swinging Sixties (the last on the Steppenwolf-ish crowd-favourite ”˜Right Now’). The vocals seamlessly integrated rock singing with indigenous intonations, something the band terms ”˜ho-wey music’ for the chanting that often takes over from minimal lyrics about rambling (”˜Hitchhiker’), nature (”˜Salamati Tears,’ ”˜Whispering Mountains’) and spreading love in general. The three solo voices (vocal, bamhum, Toji) were held up with solid efficiency by Subong’s rhythm, sporadically active bass and raw tribal-thump drumming.

The colourful gear and exotic sound do make them a certain kind of band (Abiogenesis undoubtedly owe a lot to this for their seven Grammy nominations; two in 2007 for Aeon Spell and five last year for Rustic Relish). As individuals, though, Subong and Arenla also think of their band as a message. “Sometimes even people from our own country tell me that before meeting us, they thought the Nagas were not a very kind or a very advanced people. That really moves me,” Arenla said. In a cynical present, they are drawn by an unambiguous need to unite. They may do so by flogging a few clichés or adding a simplistic twist or two to a much-trod sound, but always with proud style and guileless passion.

Regardless of the kind of day you’ve had or the average genre-range of your playlists, you will probably share in their optimistic joy if you ever get to catch Abiogenesis live. And that’s something not too many bands can boast of without coming off as pretentious or sugary sweet.