Bengaluru’s music lovers can bet on the blues this weekend-OxBig News Network

Arinjoy Trio
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Arinjoy Trio

May 9 and 10, 9:30 pm onwards

Windmills, Whitefield

Entry: ₹2000 (seating), ₹750 (standing), via windmills-india.com

This weekend at Windmills, the blues are in town courtesy Mumbai/Kolkata act The Arinjoy Trio. Comprising vocalist-guitarist Arinjoy Sarkar, drummer Sounak Roy and bassist Aakash Ganguly, the band has previously released EPs such as Talkin’ That Talk in 2023 and their self-titled debut album in 2019.

A description for the event hails them as “one of the most exciting blues acts to emerge from the Indian music scene.” It adds, “Known for their high-energy live performances, the trio brings together a wide range of blues styles — from Chicago blues and blues rock to R&B — delivered with authenticity and passion. With growing acclaim from audiences and artistes alike, the Arinjoy Trio have become one of India’s most sought-after blues bands.”

Phantom Pulse

May 11, 6:30 pm onwards

By Chance, Brigade Road

Entry: ₹599 via Skillboxes.com, plus ₹500 cover charge at the door

Essenar Zero
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The debut edition of gig series Phantom Pulse aims to showcase sounds from the country’s underground scene. To that end, they have looped in local grindcore favourites XrepeatX, Ladakh-origin noise, power electronics and death industrial artist Ruhail Qaisar and the debut performance of city-based artist Essenar Zero, also a noise, industrial and power electronics act founded by synth artist Navnit Belur from ambient/drone project Megadrone.

XrepeatX say in a collective statement that Phantom Pulse is going to be special for them, performing on the back of releasing their four-track demo Casual Violence. “We’ll be playing the demo in full, plus a few new tracks, and some material from our last full length. Our set will be short but intense — we’ve curated it to hit hard from start to finish. Expect it to be tight, loud, and raw — definitely bring your earplugs.”

About his intentions with Essenar Zero, Navnit says, “Both sonically and visually, it delves into existential themes — interrogating the future of human values and questioning whether the machines we’ve created can carry forward our essence long after we’re gone.” Ruhail for his part, says, “I am playing some new material that I have been working on since my residency in Austria, developing it over the winter in -30°C Ladakh.”

Trak

May 11, 6 pm onwards

The Blue Room, Jayanagar

Entry: ₹750, via linktr.ee/theblueroom.blr

The Blue Room in Jayanagar hosts yet another intimate jazz gig this week, offering their stage to the quartet known as TRAK. Comprising Aman Mahajan on keys, Dhani Muniz on bass, Navaneeth Krishnan on drums and Raul Mattia on a second drum kit, the band says they intend to “simultaneously defy expectations as well as set new ones for bands that follow in this experimental stream.”

Aman Mahajan
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

An event description says TRAK is “part of a new breed of jazz that embraces tradition precisely when it feels like it, never out of ‘respect’ or a longing for a different time.” It adds, “With TRAK, jazz returns to its original purpose of creating for the individual listener a feeling of weightlessness, a sense of being removed from time altogether. There are no whiskey sours or Brooks Brothers suits here, only the same sense of shared exploration and breakneck momentum that powered the ‘Jazz Age’.”

Influences range from jungle rhythms and “angular harmonies” as well as the works of Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Weather Report and Carla Bley. The description concludes, “Their music is a compulsive weaving of old and new, wrapped in an aggressive yet accessible package.”

Damru

May 11, 8 pm onwards

Gylt, Hennur

Entry: ₹499, via Skillboxes.com

Damru
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Event organisers Astro Lab Entertainments and D Eventors are bringing down New Delhi-origin psytrance artist Damru to Gylt this weekend. The DJ-producer, vocalist and percussionist is a live performer who goes beyond DJ decks for his shows, describing his music as “ragatrance” that “seamlessly blends the peace and serenity of Indian classical music with the sheer power of psytrance.” The organisers hail the event as a “mystical voyage through sound and spirit!”