Standing By

While Indian music has influenced everyone from The Beatles to Queen and everything from disco to jazz (the less said about Kula Shaker the better), there’s far more to the republic’s rich and varied sounds than providing inspiration to a bunch of travelling troubadours.

Standing By, a new six-part documentary series, will delve into the history of independent music in India. After a mammoth digital archiving effort, the series unearths some of the most interesting stories and events that were fundamental to the formation of the now-thriving independent music scene in the country.

Beginning with an exploration of the country’s early jazz scene and working through the decades to the modern day, Standing By paints an incredibly detailed picture of the music that shaped generations of lives.

More than 100 people were interviewed for the series, including the legendary likes of Usha Uthup, Louis Banks and Carlton Kitto and current music-makers such as Vishal Dadlani, Nikhil Chinapa, Rahul Ram, Monica Dogra, Nucleya and Dualist Inquiry.