British Council presents: Soundpad

It’s been a while now and Indian bands deserve more than just RECOGNITION for their creativity and efforts. For original artists, there couldn’t have been a better time to launch their music, with audiences being open to new music more than ever before and a host of biggies from the international scene taking keen interest in promoting local bands globally. Very recently, the British Council picked up on this fast-growing trend in order to make a difference to the independent music scene right here, and all this through a very ambitious project, Soundpad.

Soundpad explores the art of music production providing upcoming artists with an opportunity to sharpen the basics of their craft and a platform to showcase the final product. All this and more with UK’s legendary producer, John Leckie. Having worked with the likes of Radiohead, Muse, Pink Floyd, The Beatles etc. Leckie turned to India in order to give bands the opportunity of a lifetime, by personally recording two tracks each with them. Leckie made sure the tracks had an international ‘feel’. After listening to almost every big band in the country, Leckie hand-picked four of them, four, which he thought had maximum potential and were all extremely unique. These bands comprised Swarathma, Indigo Children, Medusa and Advaita. Three weeks ago, these bands began recording and completed their sessions just a couple of days ago.The bands will now be part of a three-city tour where they’ll be performing at popular venues in the country and by the end of the year, will release a compilation of their tracks under Counter Culture Records. A UK tour is next on their cards and is scheduled to happen early in 2009.Soundpad is a British Council initiative.