The sound of music

There are not many instrumental music bands in our part of the world, and Olam, one of them, is making waves with their benchmark pieces.  

Olam, the band, a quartet right now, has Syam N Pai (guitars), Arun S Kumar (drums), Ajoy Jose (keyboards) and Manu Ajayan (bass).  They are friends connected by music. The band is just two-and-a-half years young, but its members have been in the industry for many years. Drummer Arun, who was previously a part of the rock band Kaav, says instrumental music is ‘more musical’ than vocal music. “The band plays melodious and progressive tunes having psychedelic elements, and rooted very much in classic rock and progressive rock. We have been getting phenomenal response since the start. It’s been a fun and buzzing ride for us so far. We’ve not gone too many places to perform. The biggest event that we were part of was Malanad Calling.  For now, we are planning to go with the flow,” added Arun.

They are conducting practice at Uru Art Harbour in Kochi which gave them a platform and invited them to use the space. Olam is one of the first bands from Kerala to emerge out of an artist residency program.

Olam never does covers or adapts ideas from other artistes’ original works. They want to make their own mark on every composition they do. The band feels that in our country where music is strongly linked to film songs, people’s attitude towards independent songs has witnessed a change. “Of course there are changes happening with national and international music festivals being organised. But musicians still need a good start and public attention. May be that is one of the reasons why bands start off their journey by doing covers of film songs. We can’t blame them for that. They find it an easier and reasonable way to get attention. In the music industry it is very hard to get an opening that you wish for,” Arun added.

“Music is ever changing and it is common nowadays to have music videos. So we are working on that too. Some projects are in the pipeline,” he wraps up.