Entertainment - Indian Ocean to compose music for Aamir

Popular band Indian Ocean, which changed the course of contemporary fusion music in India with its album "Kandisa", has been experimenting with Bollywood music and its latest project is in a film being produced by Aamir Khan.

"We are composing three songs for a film which is being directed by a newcomer called Anusha and will be produced by Aamir Khan," Amit Kilam, the group's drummer, said.

After receiving rave reviews for its unique style of music, Indian Ocean entered Bollywood with Anurag Kashyap's controversial film "Black Friday".

Even though the music was completely out of the league and unusual, it was highly appreciated, especially the song "Bande".

The group is also composing music for "Mumbai Cutting" and "Bhoomi".

"'Mumbai Cutting' is a compilation of 12 short films on Mumbai and we have done one song for Anurag Kashyap's short film," Kilam said.

"We are also composing music for a new film 'Bhoomi' currently under production. We are supposed to compose six songs for the film," he added.

Rahul Ram anchors Indian Ocean along with Sushmit Sen on the guitars. While Asheem Chakraborty plays the tabla, the versatile Kilam accompanies on the drums and many other forms of percussion as well as vocals.

Kilam said it was a good time to create music in Bollywood as it was going through a transitional phase and becoming more open to unconventional tunes.

"Bollywood is opening doors and using different sorts of music a lot more than before," he said.

"Since the reach of the industry is tremendous, when Hindi films use composers like us or other young bands and young singers, then the kind of music we create has a bigger chance to reach out to more people," Kilam added.

The band was in the capital to perform at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).

Indian Ocean's genesis dates back to 1990 when it came out with its first album. In 18 years, it has brought out four albums - "Indian Ocean", "Desert Rain", "Kandisa" and "Jhini".

The band has also performed in London, at the New Zealand Arts Festival, Melbourne Arts Festival, Smithsonian Folk Life Festival (Washington), Tokyo, Indonesia, Germany, Singapore, Italy and Dubai.

"We don't feel a lot of difference when we perform in India and when we perform abroad. It's only that the audience size is a little smaller in the west because everything is organised to accommodate a set number of people. In India the number is much more," Kilam said.

Indian Ocean is known for their amalgamation of rural, urban, world and classical music.

But what is their genre?

"We don't want to confine our music to a particular genre. We don't know what our music is. And we don't want to say what it is. Instead of calling our music something else we prefer to name it Indian Ocean Music," said band member Sushmit Sen.