An Exotic Twist

12 June 2014 | 11:58 am | Kate Kingsmill

“The last album was just crazy, non-stop party the whole way through, but this album has more of those reflective moments – it’s more of this storytelling-type journey"

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"On a plane somewhere above the Pacific, The Mysterious Lady and her crack team must rid the dastardly Skipper and the fiendish Dr Electrico of the key to their secret lair – and rescue the Tiger! But how?” So begins the concept for The Island Of Dr Electrico, the second album from local Bollywood band The Bombay Royale.

Clearly, the record is a high concept tale of drama and intrigue, and the music, as you'd expect, is a high energy rampage through classic Bollywood, surfadelica, spaghetti guitar, space disco and funk, with the Hindi and Bengali vocals of Parvyn Kaur Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya. All of that in one album and, even so, Singh (aka The Mysterious Lady) says this record is more refined than their debut.

“The last album was just crazy, non-stop party the whole way through, but this album has more of those reflective moments – it's more of this storytelling-type journey. There's a lot more complexity in this album, you can pick up new things [with each listen].”

The idea for The Bombay Royale emerged from the massive record collection of saxophonist and Bollywood enthusiast Andy Williamson (aka The Skipper).

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“He had a lot of old vinyl that he would listen to,” says Singh. “And he did some research and realised that there's no one else really in the world doing that style of music live. And so he sat down and he wrote out all of the parts of some of the greatest hits of the '60s and '70s. So we started off doing covers, [but we soon began] making our own music with that vibe, and now it's purely originals.”

And Singh, who teaches Bollywood dancing as her day job, was the perfect fit for the band. “I grew up singing. My dad Diasingh is a singer, and I've been singing in an Indian style since I was five.”

All band members have aliases, characters they take on onstage, which is great for the atmosphere of gigs, says Singh. “I find it a really useful tool to let go of any self-consciousness. I'm a character onstage and so I can be whatever I want to be – I can be as sexy and outrageous as I want, and I really love having that ideal of The Mysterious Lady and what she's capable of.”

When asked what punters can expect from The Bombay Royale's The Island Of Dr Electrico launch, Singh extols, “The usual antics of The Bombay Royale! There'll be screens with images from a VJ and I'm sure The Colonel will be there: he's our big, blow-up elephant. And just the general, crazy vibes with lots of colour and costumes and all that sort of stuff.”