Peter Cat Recording Co defy simple categorization for a Western style band from India. They call themselves amateur Jazz, but many elements spring from that. Their music is a satisfying cohesive package.
Peter Cat were formed in 2009 with Suryakant Sawhney, lead vocals and guitar, as the driving force. Karan Singh, drums, was there a year later.
Several others helped start the project and fell by the wayside. Current line-up is completed by Dhruv Bola bass and samples, Rohit Gupta keyboards and trumpet, Kartik Sundareshan Pillai guitar, trumpet, keyboards and harmonium.
Sawhney has a deep interest in film music, Western and Eastern, and this informs a large part of their sound. Especially the trumpets which can add an Ennio Morricone element, with their pure tone sound.
He has a desire to be a filmmaker and has studied this formally. On stage he cultivates a louche and languid manner.
Something I have never seen live is a singer who smokes a cigarette, making it part of the performance. Genuinely cool in appearance in a Bogart fashion.
Don’t Bogart That Joint from Little Feat, many years ago. It’s not a joint he smokes. Feat were a band of multiple elements which could swing and boogie, especially in their later years after Lowell George had died, and they went for extended improvised noodling.
That is one reference point to this band.
Another could be Os Mutantes from Brazil. In the sixties they combined Psychedelia, Sixties Garage, Brazilian Pop, and avant-garde Velvet Underground stylings to fashion a band which became a Western critics’ cult fave.
On their last record Bismillah (2019) the lead singer has a smooth crooning delivery which sounds similar to the Jazz Pop male singers of the Fifties and Sixties (not Sinatra though, who he has been compared to) along with the slightest of Indian accents. Which makes him very interesting.
On stage with the volume up, you don’t notice the accent. The soft Jazz phrasing remains.
They open with an instrumental, Bebe De Vyah. Languid and laid back as the trumpets sound off, in good Spaghetti Western fashion.
Then straight into Where the Money Flows, off Bismillah. The more I would stay/ The more I’d be found/ Where the money flows/ Let the money go. Wavy spacey guitars float above. Percussion effects shine with cymbals and syn-drums.
All ten songs are played from that last released album.
Their music has survived adversity and been well-tempered by it.
They undertook an old-fashioned road trip one year. Delhi to Mumbai to Bangalore to Chennai to Goa to Chandigarh. All by car. Driving straight to the next gig after ending each concert. That’s a hell of a Route 66. Far more than two thousand miles all the way.
In their hometown of Delhi, they organised secret house party gigs. The police did shut some down, and its hard to fathom the reason why.
It does not take long for Rock, R’n’B and Funk elements to appear. Portrait of a Time has the drummer taking charge with a faster tempo. They work it up from there and may be referencing James Brown’s There Was a Time.
Soulless Friends rocks out in a heavier fashion with recognisable western world guitar riffs.
Heera and they extend out on a great rolling riff mantra, curiously sounding like eighties New Wave. I might be thinking of No Wave artists like James Chance. This is the first one where he puffs on a fag.
Much later someone commented to me but surely this isn’t allowed. Well, the moral police don’t exist here so far, although enough people act like they do.
Vishnu<3 is the closest in temperament to Indian music. Love is the dominant chant. The trumpet comes in quietly, but then gallops western style as two horns combine. The harmonium drone meshes with this in beautiful fashion.
The title invokes the God realm.
I’m This. You get accustomed to the fine balance of Sawhney’s voice. Here he starts in falsetto.
Love Demons has possibly the most soulful reading. And that is why I pray/ To Gods that always fail/ To drag that girl back to my window/ And undress my faith/ And smile at me while I put on my chains.
Does this make them subversives in the East? India is the most tolerant country I have ever travelled through, although you must go there for longer than just a quick holiday to understand this.
This would not pass the judgement of the moral guardians of other faiths.
A brief diversion to illustrate the point. The Taliban have banned sport in Afghanistan. So, the Afghan cricket team can only exist without tyranny and death, in Pakistan. They have developed quickly and have reached world competition status.
When they played in New Zealand, they attracted wide-spread public support. I mention this as a counterpoint to the most cricket mad country in the world, from which this band hail from.
Music, art, and sport. They do equate to the heart and soul of people.
Memory Box is hard, shake yer booty Disco with an outstanding doubled -up bass line. From the gadgets come the sound of strings.
I’m Home is slower and ponderous, with the ambience of the sea.
They do it funky and rock’n’roll on the closing song, with some tasty guitar shredding and the trumpets piercingly high.
Peter Cat Recording Co transform our expectations with seduction rather than brute force. An unusual band and I can see why they have passionate devotees.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
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