Hear Daira’s Madcap New Album ‘Itni Jurrat?’

On their latest music video for one of their earliest compositions “Mazedaar,” Mumbai rock band Daira create Mazedaar Clinic, what drummer Pratik Kulgod describes as “your own place where you can be yourself.” Rightly so, the video features friends of the band all at their uninhibited best, perhaps a reflection of the band’s own primal, psychedelic aesthetics on stage and in their music. “That’s the kind of image we want to create. We want to have that theatrical element to our shows,” the drummer adds.

It’s a signature style that Daira began developing around the same time as their mind-bending improv album Vipreet Buddhi (2017). Guitarist Vikalp Sharma says about their previous record, “It’s that feeling of jamming and creating stuff on the go, since we went to Manali and tripped and starting writing songs that way. Something happened after writing these songs that got carried on. It’s automatic, whatever we do from hereon, there’s going to be some element of Vipreet Buddhi in it.”

The nine-track Itni Jurrat? is their third album, but features songs that were written three years ago and some ”“ like the wavy, trembling “Bhookamp” ”“ that were even performed at the album launch of their self-titled debut album in 2015. The album ”“ co-produced by Serbian producer Vojislav Aralica ”“ makes its way through familiar live staples such as “Mahaul” and “Mazedaar” but also retains the psychedelic, unhinged edge of Vipreet Buddhi on songs like “Ailaan” “Raat Ka Kinaara” and “Poshaaq.”

Considering some of these songs were waiting to be released for a while, Daira are already on to new material that is born out of jam sessions. Kulgod says, “We added one more song from an upcoming thing ”“ we haven’t named it ”“ it has Piyush playing the trumpet.”

The drummer mentions that now that they’re done with their launch at Epic Shor on October 6th and plotting a tour that takes them across the country through to November, there may as well be a second improvisational album like Vipreet Buddhi. Sharma adds, “The live thing we do in the band is the most natural thing we do. We don’t want to kill that or make it really disciplined. We want to keep it flowing, the way it should be.”