In the five years since Ahmedabad’s Compass Box Studios started its journey, it has gone from a sort of upstart in the scene to now being one of the most stable, solid structures in Indian indie. It’s just like a really well-made car; it does its job and is reliable as can be. It’s become quite difficult to have strong opinions about their members and the work they put out, because they have a high standard that they just stick to. This is almost strange for a community of music and musicians that varies wildly in terms of preferences, genres and popularity almost every year. Hip-hop had a big year recently, EDM had one too (against the odds), singer-songwriters are having a good year this year. But outside of all that, there’s still Raag, Meera, Chirag, Protyay and co. just keeping at it and making consistent content.

And so it is this time around. It’s a song released as a live session; no frills, one take and that’s it. It’s a model that has worked for a few years now, so it will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that it is the case here. The in-house crew usually collaborates with a range of other artists on each one; in this case, it’s Queendom, who are a fresh vocal trio composed of Ananya Sharma, Brecilla D'souza and Damini Gautam. So ‘Pussytalk’ is naturally focused on vocal melodies and dynamics, and there’s plenty of both. It’s a quiet, slinky jazz tune with a minimal arrangement, so there’s a cavernous space in the mix for three main voices to play around. And they do. The harmonies are next level, and they do that thing vocal groups do where they give each other parts; the fun of it all is in the interplay between their voices, and of course, every time they come together, it’s a win. What we’re looking at here is just another example of a good formula executed well. Get good musicians into a room and hit record.