Slow Down Clown Kick Off Album Launch Tour

Slow Down Clown. Photo: Siddharth Dugha

Mumbai band Slow Down Clown released their full length debut album Forget The Night in November last year. But the launch gig was placed on the backburner owing to a number of reasons, including frontman Vitek Goyel getting married and bassist Kenneth Wilson busy touring with his other project, Ceasar’s Palace. In the meanwhile, Slow Down Clown drummer Arfaaz Kagalwala and guitarist Anurag Shanker kickstarted their producer duo project, Arfaaz & Anurag, composing music for Bollywood films such as Luke Kenny’s Rise of the Zombie and the Naseerudin Shah starrer Charlie Ke Chakkar Mein.  Says Kagalwala, “We tried to get a tour around the launch but it was such a hectic time. There were so many festivals and pre-parties for festivals that time.”

Tonight, as part of the Forget The Night launch, the band has come up with a tagline that piqued our curiosity: “Sonic Exploration Meets Visual Poetry” and brought illustrator Amrita Bagchi to come up with a visual backdrop for the show. “We wanted it to be more than just a gig where the band performs all the songs from their album,” adds the drummer. And though Slow Down Clown will perform the album in its entirety, they also plan to take requests and bring some of their old songs to stage. The performance will also feature interesting stop motion animation by Bagchi. “People can’t grasp the context of our songs at times. The lyrics in fact are so strong and essential to our music. Making our show cinematic in nature will help many understand it. Also, it will be interesting to see an artist’s take on our songs,” says Kagalwala.

“Shoreline”, a song that Goyel wrote in 2006, is the longest track on the album clocking in at over seven minutes. The song talks about “waiting for someone at an empty shoreline”, but Bagchi has found her own meaning. “The key theme running through Slow Down Clown’s latest album is ”˜nothing stays the same’. While creating visuals for ”˜Shoreline’, I kept this in mind ”“ paired with themes related to nostalgia, urban alienation and loss, and an eventual acceptance of all these things. It’s a funny state of mind, really,” she says.

Listen to Slow Down Clown’s “Shoreline” here:

Watch Bagchi’s visual interpretation for “Shoreline” here: 

Slow Down Clown perform at Blue Frog, Mumbai tonight and at High Spirits, Pune on February 22^nd, 2013