music
How did the idea for forming Ladies
Compartment come about?
LC: It stemmed from the idea of having a
safe space for women who choose to do music.
Just like the Mumbai local trains that have
different women from all over travelling to a
destination. We’re all on this journey together.Tell us about yourselves and what each of
you contributes to the band.
Nandita: Aarifah is a drummer, singer-
songwriter and guitarist who sings and plays
drums in the band. Ramya is the producer,
guitarist and singer-songwriter who sings and
plays guitars, Aditi is a singer-songwriter and
keyboardist, and I am the bassist in the band.What message do you want to
convey through your band Ladies
Compartment?
LC: We want to just play our
music and normalize the stereotype
about women musicians.What has been your experience so
far as an all-female project in the
Indian indie music industry?
LC: We have been well-received
and supported by multiple
platforms and performance spaces.
We have pushed forward by
focusing on our music, but the truth
remains that people love to overuse
and push the ‘all-female’ aspect for
branding and this sometimes shifts
the focus away from the music.
We’re trying to move away from this
type of branding.Do any / all of you have any musical
background?
Nandita: Ramya has been trained in
Hindustani, Aditi has been trained in CarnaticWhenever we think of 90’s girls bands, we automatically
think of the Spice Girls. The girl group was one of the
bestselling girl bands of all time and is responsible
for making “girl power” a rallying cry for fans everywhere.
Fast forward to 2017 and you have Ladies Compartment,
a dynamic all-female music project based out of Mumbai.
Unlike the Brit-based Spice Girls who came together after
answering a newspaper ad in a trade newspaper and are
termed as a girl band, the four young ladies of Ladies
Compartment came together as friends who decided
to form a band, and referred to as such, instead of
being known as a girl band.
The name Ladies Compartment is a tribute to
the daily trials of a working woman in the city
of Mumbai and
its local trains.
Consisting of
four extremely
talented young
girls, there’s
Ramya Pothuri (acoustic and vocals), Aarifah Rebello (drums
and vocals), Aditi Ramesh (keys and vocals) and Nandita V.
(bass and vocals) who make up the band. The band talks
about everyday experiences in their songs and also do covers
of popular songs; the Beatles’ Blackbird is a must listen. The
piece has a lone guitar with the ladies’ perfectly harmonized
vocals in a haunting, stripped-down rendition: a truly unique
cover of a timeless classic.
The band’s sound is a refreshing mix of jazz, soul and
blues, with the occasional, intriguing addition of Carnatic
classical music.
VERUS FERREIRA met up with the band for a short
interaction.