Peter Cat Recording Co. Release Collection of Old Material Titled ‘Happy Holidays’

It’s nearly a year since New Delhi waltz/gypsy jazz rock band Peter Cat Recording Co. released their wondrous album Bismillah in June 2019 but in the way the live music industry has been hit due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, a lot has been put on pause.

In the meantime, the band has decided to round up older, rejected material as well as one previously released song for a compilation called Happy Holidays, which is out via Bandcamp and Instamojo. Similar to their 2012 release Wall of Want, Peter Cat Recording Co. present demos as well as polished songs written by bassist Dhruv Bhola (“Work Clothes”), trumpet, synth and guitarist-vocalist Kartik Pillai (“Go Home”), vocalist-guitarist Suryakant Sawhney (who leads vocals on “Glass or 2” and “Jee Jee”) and multi-instrumentalist Rohit Gupta. The ethereal “Clouds,” a song off their 2015 album Climax now makes a reappearance in the band’s online catalog as the opening track on Happy Holidays.

The band highlighted that there are “obviously more serious and important things going on around the world right now,” hinting towards grim times ahead for humanity and the planet at large. “This may be only the underwater earthquake before the tsunami, and it’s impossible to say what’s on the other side, but one thing is certain, there’s no going back, and there shouldn’t be,” the statement adds.

While there were more shows and tours – both in India and Europe – planned for 2020, Peter Cat do admit that fans won’t be seeing them “in physical form for a while.” Considering Bismillah marked the end of certain chapters in the band’s collective and personal journeys, they promise that “the next proper release will be something more monumental and important, and a welcome to the new world.”

Listen to ‘Happy Holidays’ below. Buy the digital album here.