The name, Peter Cat Recording Co., at first instance, sounds more like a music business than a band. For the group, it was clever way of introducing their self-image as ‘a self-sufficient factory of music and art.’ In today’s music industry, creating exceptional music alone isn’t enough; mastering marketing and production is also essential. Peter Cat Recording Co. is unapologetically honest in acknowledging the business side of music, where every musician desires love, recognition but also a livelihood. Lead singer, Suryakant Sawhney, who also doubles as Lifafa, explains why he added Recording Co. to Peter Cat, a name drawn from a Kolkata restaurant and Haruki Murakami’s Jazz club. He remarks, ‘It made sense to me as a joke, like music is one of the worst businesses that you can do.’
After more than five years, the band returns with their new music album, BETA. Their last album, Bismillah, had ushered in a new wave for this alternative band, known for its wry lyrics, wacky visuals, and a blend of deep romance and political commentary. Karan Singh on drums, Dhruv Bhola on bass and samples, Rohit Gupta on keys and trumpet, Kartik Sundareshan Pillai on keyboards, guitar, electronics, and trumpet, alongside vocalist Suryakant, exhibit their signature quirk in an even more refined manner on BETA. In this latest iteration, they sport bold eyeliners and perform their song Suddenly on a boat, dressed in white captain uniforms, metaphorically steering through the currents of life. The song serves as a poignant farewell letter to Suryakant’s late father from both him and his mother with lyrics like Can we kiss you? Before the fire burns you to the bones. The music video also features his mother, who’s story is reflected in the song as she reigns her life by emerging as a business kind of women.
Alongside such intense and poignant lyrics, BETA also features beats that will make you shake a leg and at the same time, make you lose yourself in that eye-closing serene sensation. You might groove to the dance beats and horns of the single People Never Change, which explores people’s reactions and the consequences of choosing a life that doesn’t conform to a society resistant to change.
With beats that energize and vocals that soothe, the album encapsulates the personal journeys of band members, including experiences like losing a parent and welcoming a child. Yet, it also captures a universal sentiment—what it means to live on a planet undergoing rapid change. BETA serves as a lamentation for the simpler times of the past.
The stark hot pink album cover features a Chinese figure that Suryakant encountered in a Chinatown in Thailand and brought home. ‘It sort of symbolizes the cross-cultural essence we aim to convey through our music,’ Suryakant explains. 'Traditionally associated with Chinese New Year and believed to bring auspiciousness, its inclusion in the cover art was a very intuitive decision. Our previous album cover drew largely from reality, this time we wanted to experiment with something more fantastical—moving towards storytelling in a different style,' he adds.
Karan explains the inspiration behind the album’s name, BETA. ‘BETA is a gender-neutral term commonly used by our parents’ generation. We are all ‘beta’ to our parents, so it holds both personal and universal significance.’ Reflecting on a more personal touch, he adds, ‘I recently became a parent, and we let my child choose the album name from five chits thrown onto the floor. He coincidently picked BETA, which somehow felt as a binding word for the album, it all felt connected and somewhat freaky.’
In its freaky beauty, the first song on BETA, serves a paradox of growth and sonically dystopia. The track Flowers R. Blooming visually transports slow-motion bomb blasts like scenes from a film. As a symphony of instruments rises, flowers bloom on a desolate, confused dystopian landscape, slowly fading into nothingness. The lyrics teem with a sense of irony and beauty, psychedelic yet grounding, where blossoms emerge as we face our demise.
Karan also reflects, ‘It’s like a dystopian world that has become a part of our reality.’ Living in Goa, he observes rampant construction altering landscapes drastically. Suryakant shares the inspiration behind the paradoxical imagery: ‘The imagery came from living in Goa, where many old abandoned houses are crumbling and overrun with plants. We managed to record the song inside an 18th-century cottage owned by a priest. In that place, on that night, we constructed the entire song spontaneously.’
Alongside transformations in the natural landscape, the band has also observed significant shifts in the Indian indie music scene since Bismillah. ‘Social media has truly altered the landscape; you can gain attention and rise rapidly,’ Suryakant remarks. Rohit observes that many began making music during the pandemic. ‘Now, it’s often more about effective marketing than exceptional music, but that’s the rule of the game, you can’t escape it.’
Ahead of their expansive 77-date Good Luck Beta 2024 world tour, Suryakant shares his mixed bag of feelings. ‘It’s exciting, but it’s also 77 days straight, one after the other. We only get to see nice stations, the backstage areas, and venue bathrooms. It’s a lot less glamorous than you might imagine.’
With their distinctive sound and narrative depth, they continue to push boundaries and redefine the possibilities of music in today’s global landscape. Peter Cat Recording Co. remains committed to crafting music that presents universal and personal feelings about a world that seems to be rupturing, as one of their lyrics say.
Words Paridhi Badgotri
Photography Tenzing Dakpa
Date 10.08.2024