I’d thought I’d be able to give Bob Dylan’s new album a good long listen and then perhaps write my two bits about it in this instalment of DC. Tempest, Dylan’s 35th album, came out on September 11; I managed to get hold of it a couple of days later but before I could properly listen to it, the deadline of this column was upon me (Brunch goes to press really early in the week and its editor is quite a strict disciplinarian when it comes to deadlines). I don’t know about you but I just can’t casually listen to any of Dylan’s albums, particularly a brand new one from a living legend who is now 71. Dylan’s isn’t by any stretch ambient music. It requires focused listening. Read more

It was intended to be a nice road trip. It was an extended weekend. Two men. Two women. A child (a very well-behaved one). A great car – one of those luxury SUVs that cost more than what my flat did when we bought the latter. A destination tucked away in the upper reaches of Kumaon where email reaches you only in fits and bursts. It helped that both the men – one young and the other middle-aged – enjoyed driving with the former being an expert driver and an information whale on SUVs. We had everything we would need up there in the hilly nook we were headed for – a case of wine, light woollens and so on. The only thing left was the music we’d listen to on the way. Read more

The Urbanears Plattans are fashion-forward, stylish and very trendy. And they deliver a sound that is nicely bass-heavy and, while not excellent, very pleasing to the ears. No, the Urbanears Plattans aren’t a band—although I can well imagine encountering a band with that kind of a name. The Plattans are my newest addition to an embarrassingly large hoard of headphones and earphones that I have collected over the years.
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I don’t know why I went into a sudden R.E.M. phase a few weeks back but it could have to do with the fact that a colleague had acquired their new box set of re-mastered (with bonus and live tracks) versions of their first three albums—Murmur, Reckoning and Fables of Reconstruction. I dusted off my old R.E.M. studio albums, all 14 of them, and began listening to them after ages. Then I tried buying that box set but I still haven’t located a music shop that has it. Read more

Last weekend, I did something that is totally at odds with what Download Central is supposed to do. Instead of sitting at my computer and scouring the Internet for downloads or streams of new music, I actually went out and watched a rock band performing live. The gig was at Delhi’s kitschy Hard Rock Café (but then aren’t all HRCs meant to be kitschy?) and the band was Hurricane Bells who hail from Brooklyn, New York.

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