Band members speak about the sound of sarod in their music and why they choose to stay genre-fluid
When singer Siddhant Sarkar saw a video of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ playing on the sarod, he envisioned this exotic Indian instrument playing a role in electronic music. He approached Rohan Prasanna, who is trained in Sarod, to jam with him and his musician friends. Thus was born the five-member band Kitanu in 2017 which, apart from Siddhant and Rohan, included guitarist Omkar Raghupatruni, drummer Guru Ganapathy and bassist Armaan Handa.
The recently released three-track EP, according to the band, is a “folk, trippy sound of a sarod thanks to influences from jazz, funk, rock and roll, blues, metal and bossa nova”.
Kitanu Cover
The first number ‘Vacation’ proceeds with the sarod, allowing the guitar to merge with it before mixing the vocals. The second track, ‘Pebbles’, is calm in mood but energetic in its beat. The final number ‘Faith’ features vocals and guitar while the sarod makes its presence felt; Curious about what a difference sarod can make here keeps you hooked. “The challenge in using a sarod is to get it to sound right, both music and sound, in sync with Western instruments,” says Rohan.
Although the sarod sets Kitanu apart from other bands and they want to take advantage of it, the members believe that their USP is that each instrument has its own role to play in accomplishing and maintaining balance. Onkar says, “The sarod is not the focus, it is the music; We would be obliged if the music calls for a banging sarod solo, the same goes for other instruments. That being said, we realize that the sarod is what makes our sound distinctive and what we call ‘our sound’.
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The fascination with Indian instruments led the theory to wonder how the ‘country sound’ would blend with the ‘traditional western’. “I used to play with a steaming player and always wanted to pursue the idea of combining Indian folk instruments to create something new and different. This idea was further cemented when on some of my travels I got to know about indigenous folk instruments, their unique uniqueness of voice stunned me; I just knew that this was something I wanted to incorporate into my music/sound. “
Why would one want to name their band Kitanu which in English means Germs? Siddhant explains: “Back in 2017, before the pandemic, I fell ill once and still decided to go to my jam because we all just wanted to work. I thought my bandmates would appreciate my determination to keep coming to the jam despite being sick. However, I coughed a lot during the jam and everyone went to the other room and left me with the mic in the jam pad. We kept jamming but it was a lot of jokes and jokes… as you can imagine, all these jokes eventually led to the name Kitanu which stuck with the band. “
The band members feel that they have grown personally as musicians and plan to remain genre-fluid. Says Siddhant, “We think that when you decide to stick to one genre, you limit yourself and we all see our music as an amalgamation of different sounds rather than something specific.”
Kitanu has started preparing for his next EP and says that there are more exciting songs in it. Says Omkar, “It is going to improve further in all aspects because this time we have done everything ourselves including recording and mixing and we all feel that we have become much better at it now.”
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