BENGALURU: Nitish Chachra started his affair with music in 2015 as a DJ, who played extensive number of club gigs across the city under the artiste title, Chalk. The endeavour eventually led him to meet music director Sandeep Chowta, which further initiated discussion of ideas, resulting on a new project titled Chalk & Cheeze. Chowta is on production duties for Chachra’s upcoming seven-track album, House Music Without Borders, which is set to be released on January 31 and also officially kicks off the outfit.
Chowta describes house music as an extension of disco music with strong bass lines and straightforward beats. “We tried to be honest and true to the music since both of us are fond of the genre. I have written and produced the album but this is definitely Chachra’s sound and me being a collaborator. We have kept the lengths of the songs to short durations so people can listen to the album unlike dance albums.
When asked about whether being distant from Bollywood was to pursue non-commercial projects, Chowta says his father fell while working on the movie, Parmanu, which is when we took a break and shut his studio in Mumbai for a while. He adds, “I have been doing non-commercial work for a while now and have been working on something interesting, which will be announced mid-year. I am looking to do more songs so you will hear a lot about non-commercial work from my end.”
Speaking about the influences behind the House Music Without Borders, Chachra says the idea was to create an album with diverse elements in the house genre with deep house tracks and adding classical elements such as the sarangi and not limiting it to the club genre of house music. Another interesting bit is the titles of each track, which carry the names of days in a week. “We have translated the days of the week in Hindi and the seven tracks are named accordingly. We named the first track as ‘Ravivar’ and the other songs roll in according to the order of a week. We also have vocal samples, which were recorded in the studio and then looped into the tracks,” he says. CE also wanted to know why the identity of the second member of his outfit wasn’t revealed, to which he says, “The idea with Chalk N Cheeze is that my identity remains unmasked while the second member is behind the mask, which we don’t reveal. It’s definitely not Sandeep, and the mask maintains an element of curiosity.”
Chachra emphasised that he aims to bring back sounds from the ’70s and ’80s and adds that there is a huge shift into the techno scene in India but most people follow the hype. “We want to start a community where people come for the music and not for alcohol.”