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menwhopause were one of the many bands showcased in this year’s SXSW torrent and their track Father Monologue caught my attention right away. And, as they just informed me, they are also the first Indian band to ever perform at SXSW.

They are an excellent acoustic progressive/psych rock band from New Delhi, India who produce their music in English. They started out playing together in 1991 in an abandoned warehouse. It was a band of dedicated fans that pushed them to get their music out into the open. In 2003 they self-released their 3-song EP The Story Begins on their website, and it was an instant hit. And even though the EP was available as a free download, bootleggers got in on it making money with pirated copies. After that they started to get international airplay, including on the BBC, and got into the top 10 on international mp3 sites.

Since then they concentrated on writing original material with good lyrics, even raising the bar for other Indian bands to do the same.

In 2006 they released their concept album Home. It’s available from their website as a free download, complete with album art.

Play: Fly Away

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(download)

Band members:

• Sarabjit Chadha – vocals/acoustic guitar/harmonica
• Anup Kutty – electric guitar/acoustic guitar/backing vocals/harmonica
• Ip Singh – acoustic guitar and an assortment of instruments
• Randeep Singh – bass/backing vocals
• Rahul Chatterjee – drums

Links: Official site – MySpace – last.fm