The (not so) recent proliferation of ‘indie’ music based on acoustic guitars and a vague sense of longing is not surprising in the least. It lends itself to some amount of good lyricism, it’s easy to put together and it gives everyone that makes it a sense of truth. It has also been co-opted to such an extent that it’s pretty much the norm for anyone that listens to singer-songwriters to be comfortable in that musical space. Aditya Kambhampati is the latest entrant to this part of the scene with his EP ‘Green Room Sessions’ and he pretty much does all the done things.

There are some attempts at adding spice on the four songs here. Opening track ‘Panna’ has some really well mixed drums, snatches of strings and an oddly long guitar solo that tries to fill it out. The space created between drums and acoustic guitar with hints of bass is a proven formula from the 2000s (Modest Mouse, anyone?) and it sounds good here. ‘The Shepherd Song’ is a song made for movie soundtracks with its shakers and its very poppy vocal delivery. The lyrics for this release are credited to Aditya Karhadkar; his words are quite flowery, but that’s the right decision to take when having subject material that deals in metaphor. ‘Siyahi’ is some sort of attempt at the old-school swing-inspired pop that Bollywood really loved back in the days of Eastman colour and the western stylings of the Burmans and talks about a close companion. ‘Tukda’ is about being grounded but has a very movie vibe with its keys, strings and generally uplifting mood.

At the end of the day, this is another ‘indie’ EP; it’s wrong to expect anything more than that. Aditya and Aditya know what they are going for and haven’t extended their sound into anything you’d be particularly surprised by, but comfort and familiarity is precisely what ‘Green Room Sessions’ will provide if you like listening to the quiet, poppy and highly accessible music that has taken over a big part of the indie scene these days.