![The Bombay Royale // Bringing back Funk from the ‘Golden Age of Bollywood’ [FREE DOWNLOAD]](http://nadabrahma.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Bombay-Royale-1.jpg)
The cinema of 1960’s and 1970’s, India was a riot of saturated colour and dramatic excess. Far from the polish and shine of modern Bollywood, an ingenious industry was forging a new nation’s identity, cannibalising every aspect of world cinema and remaking it.
At the forefront were great minds like Kalyanji Anandji and the Burmans (R.D & S.D), who made music that was the envy of all other producers of the Indian film industry. Back then, during the ‘Golden Age of Bollywood’ these visionaries were pushing innovative music that was unmatched in bizarre experimentation, deep sophistication and outright funky badness.
The product was music Indian deep funk and psycho-psychedelic masterpieces featuring funk breakbeats, wah-wah guitars and Motown-style orchestrations with vocals provided by the legends Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar and other. This would later prove to be a treasure trove for sample hungry hip-hop heads and secretive, vinyl-obsessed funk collectors like Wu Tang, Jaylib, Madlib and probably the most famous one ‘Don’t Phunk with my Heart’ by The Black-Eyed Peas
Based in Melbourne, THE BOMBAY ROYALE is a dazzling eleven piece Retro-Bollywood juggernaut band that is bringing the sound of the ‘Golden Age of Bollywood’ back to the future, where it belongs! Since their first gig in April 2010 with performances at St Kilda Festival, Bellingen Global Carnival and a featured performance at the Australasian World Music as a result THE BOMBAY ROYALE have been met with considerable acclaim.
Musical director Andy Williamson (“The Skipper”) formed THE BOMBAY ROYALE to bring the hidden musical gems of that lost era out into the light. The originators, people like Kalyanji Anandji, R.D Burman, Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi are still household names in India, but largely unknown in the outside world.THE BOMBAY ROYALE is here to rectify that situation.
Dedicated to honouring and reviving the funky, bizarre and mysterious music of vintage Indian cinema, THE BOMBAY ROYALE are an uncanny crew of masked marauders (kind of like what you would see on the track ‘Jaan Pehechaan Ho’ made famous by the Heineken and Ghost World) and session pirates hauled from various crews united to assault the senses.
Their debut album ‘You Me Bullets Love’ out on HopeStreet Recordings, starring vocalists Parvyn Kaur Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya in a blend of evocative Hindi and Bengali vocals, pulsing deep funk, disco breaks and shimmering surf-a-delica. Expect bustling tablas, hot brass, spaghetti strings, screaming organs and driving bass and drums packaged occasionally with elephants, monkeys and tigers.
‘You Me Bullets Love’ is for the neophytes and enthusiasts alike, a combination of vibrant original material and vintage Hindi superhits.
4/5
FREE DOWNLOAD HERE: 1 – The Bombay Royale – You Me Bullets Love (Radio Edit)
http://www.thebombayroyale.com
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Band members: Julian Goyma, Ros Jones, Josh Bennett, Ed Fairlie, Tom Martin, Bob Knob, Declan Jones, Matt Vehl, Parvyn Singh, Andy Williamson, Shourov Bhattacharya
