CHENNAI: “We tend to jam a lot at international airports,” says Yotam Agam. No surprises there, considering their group is called Business Class Refugees. A few days ahead of their tour of France, the Israeli duo of Yotam and Patrick Sebag was in the city doing what they to do best — electro-folk rhythms with a carnatic twist. And with big names in the crew, ranging from Mahesh Vinayakram (vocals) to Pratik Shrivastava (Sarod), Chiranjit Mukherjee (Tabla) and guest artist Shalini Mohan (Bass) — their unique genre of music is bound to shake things up — whether on stage or at an airport. Ask them what they will be playing on tour and Patrick laughs, “It’s full on masala.” He goes on to explain the mix, “We have a whole bunch of songs from our previous self titled album apart from a few new pieces.” Definitely one to watch out for is a track called Vellai Thaamarai. “This one is special because it has electronic responses to each carnatic line of vocals,” explains Mahesh.So how does their audience respond to carnatic-world music fusion? “Honestly, the audiences here are the hardest to please,” Yotam admits. “We could be playing the same thing in Europe and people just get up and dance, but here the crowd is very shy,” and sometimes “just a bit stiff”. It is surprising to know that they are based right here in Chennai. They even have Indian names — Kartick (Patrick) and Gotam (Yotam), that form the title of the music collaboration, K&G. Patrick states, “We’re on planes twice or thrice a month minimum.” Yotam agrees. “In fact, we just got back to Chennai from South Africa a few days ago.” One can tell that another album is brewing, perhaps with a tinge of Swahili this time.How ‘Business Class’ and ‘Refugees’ came together“In 2006 when we were working on the Laya Project (a work by global music label EarthSync that focused on the folk songs of communities ravaged by the 2004 tsunami), we took an overbooked flight to Jakarta via Singapore. In Singapore we presented our passports at the Indonesian Embassy and applied for visas. The applications had to be processed the same day, but it took three days. We were stuck in a business class lounge without passports. To kill time we worked on some music using our laptops. And then, all of a sudden, the idea for an album struck. And that’s how we became the Business Class Refugees” recalls Yotam.
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