Awarding the Indies

While the awards were announced in April,musicians were invited to send in entries across six “music genre based” and two “non-music genre based” categories — Best Hip-Hop/Rap Artiste,Best Pop Artiste,Best Rock Artiste,Best Folk Fusion Artiste,Best Metal Artiste,Best Electronica Artiste,Best Video and Best Album Art.

The award function began with a performance by Mumbai-based musician Siddharth Basrur,followed by the awards for Best Album Art and Best Video. The former was given to Delhi metal act 1833 AD for My Dark Symphony,and the latter to Bangalore funk band ‘Live Banned’ for The Auto Tune.

Among the nominees that were selected over the various categories were some of indie scene’s best-known names,including Reggae Rajahs,Indus Creed,Dualist Inquiry,Thermal and a Quarter,Blakc,Siddharth Basrur and Spud in the Box. Ultimately,the jury chose Mumbai’s Vivek Rajagopalan,Kerala’s Chaos,Delhi’s Dualist Inquiry,Mumbai’s Indus Creed,Bangalore/ Chennai trio Machas With Attitude and Mumbai-based Benny Dayal for folk fusion,metal,electronica,rock,hip-hop/rap and pop respectively. Chaos were the only act that were also awarded the people’s choice,while rock went to Spud in the Box,electronica to Sahil and Urvil,folk fusion to Shankar Tucker,hip-hop/rap to Enkore and pop to Raahie.