Indigo Children To Release New Single

Indigo Children’s Sanchal Malhar on set for the music video shoot of “Summer Love”. Photo: Medha Singh

It’s late afternoon when 29-year-old Sanchal Malhar, lead vocalist of Indigo Children, is tucking into breakfast. “It’s a good time for breakfast,” he says, without a hint of irony in his voice. It’s obvious that while the Delhi-based vocalist’s music may have matured over the last decade, his personality has remained much the same.

Malhar’s journey since 2004 has been a rollercoaster ride, while he juggled projects and line-up changes. His first incarnation was as vocalist and guitarist for garage rock band The Superfuzz, along with bassist Nikhil Rufus Raj and drummer Aditya Paharia. The Superfuzz disbanded in 2008 and made way for Indigo Children, of which Raj is also the bassist. Indigo Children announced plans for a debut album in late 2012, but has had no material out until now. Fast forward to 2015, and Superfuzz has regrouped, dropped the ”˜the’ from its name, and released a debut EP, while Indigo Children still ploughs on, but without the promised album.

The delay, we learn, wasn’t because they changed their mind ”“ it was because of a tiff with their then management. “In the summer of 2013, we had three-fourths of the album recorded already. We had a fallout with the management so we ran out of money, so we couldn’t go to the studio no more to finish the album. We were kind of just sitting around without any gigs because we had no management,” Malhar says.

Now, Indigo Children are up and ready with their first single in three years, titled “Summer Love,” a song that was written back in 2013. Says Malhar, “I thought I’ll just write and record a new song, on the back of which we could get a few gigs and make some money and get back into the studio. That was the idea behind it, I wrote it like an exercise.” It’s also the first song by Indigo Children that’s been written and recorded completely by Malhar, with the exception of the drums. “It was the first of its kind that I did. In the past, I’ve worked with other musicians in getting what I wanted, but this time I did it all on my own. So it was kind of like a bedroom exercise, to see if I could get away with doing a production all on my own.”

Those expecting more of the type of garage punk rock we’ve come to associate with Indigo Children will be in for a surprise. “Summer Love,” the musician informs us, is more of a ballad. Says Malhar, “I wanted to do a simple song. Nothing too prog rock or virtuoso, just simple, but lyrical too.” There’s also a video to go with the song, which will be released along with the single at a gig in Delhi.

Malhar says an album, titled Triangulation, is also forthcoming for Indigo Children. “Summer Love” however, will not feature on it. “It’s the same tracklist from 2013. So now seems like the right time to put the single out and do some gigs. We really need some money to go back into the studio and finish the godforsaken album,” he laughs.

The band, currently comprising vocalist and guitarist Malhar, bassist Raj, guitarist R.N. Jaidev and drummer Sahil Mendiratta, also has plans to perform in as many cities as possible. The future, Malhar says, is not set in stone for Indigo Children. “As long as we can make some money and we can keep recording new music, we’ll keep doing it. We do our work anyway, I’m pretty much at it, but the scene in India is such that you can write a couple albums worth of music and keep everything ready, but there’s no demand for it,” he says, adding, “We’re in it for the long haul, I just hope this country’s also in it for the long haul. Especially for a band like Indigo Children, we make kind of weird music.”

Indigo Children launch ”˜Summer Love’, at Turquoise Cottage, New Delhi on March 18th. 9 pm onwards. Entry Rs 200.