At this years NH7 Weekender,Pune,most artistes played their gig and enjoyed the festival in their free time. A few of them collaborated with one,maybe two bands while vocalist Siddharth Basrur performed with eight. No surprise that he felt like a circus monkey,running from one stage to the other. On the final day,there was a surprise acoustic session,I stayed for some time but then slipped out without telling anybody. I was sick of it, says Basrur. Five minutes later,he says he would probably do it again. It is this attitude that has made Basrur an indie scene darling. This year has been the most eventful for the 32-year-old. He was nominated for Best Indie Artist at the Indian Video Music Awards,he has sung jingles for several major brands,bagged a playback singing gig for the movie David and was a part of Coke Studio@MTV. When he quit his day job on April 1,2011,it could well have been an April Fools prank he was playing on himself. He didnt have any money-making projects in hand and was new to the sessions music world. I used to get hold of numbers of production houses from friends and cold call them saying,I am a new singer. I have two tracks. Can you take five minutes and listen to them? If you dont like my voice I wont bother you again,but if you do,please give me a project to work on, says Basrur. Now he has sung jingles for HDFC,Dell and Tata Sky. On the indie front,his album Chasing Rain cemented his place as a singer-songwriter,but his music today is changing. He recently collaborated on the track Good to you with Sandunes,Sanaya Ardeshirs future garage act. He is also the official vocalist for Gaurav Rainas (of Midival Punditz fame) new solo live EDM project,GRAIN. With guitarist Vishal J Singh,Basrur has launched The Library,an instrumental progressive/post rock outfit,a departure from his forlorn love ballads he performed as a singer-songwriter. He also is composing music for okaki freak,a solo electronic music avatar. Basrur has got the look of a kid showing off his new toys,as he plays scratches of both his jingles and his indie music. Music is the only thing that gets me any creative inspiration today. I have stopped reading,and hardly watch movies. I have to make music to keep sane, he says.
