Since the last six years, the musical ensemble Kutumba has struggled and claimed their space in the hearts of Nepali music enthusiasts. They have their own identity—refreshing tunes from traditional instruments like tabala, flute, sarangi, tungna, arabajo and different types of skin drums. They are probably the most popular instrumental band in the country; they focus on individual instruments and believe that lyrics cannot render the power that good music can carry.
With Arun playing the tungna and arbajo, Kiran on sarangi, Pavit and Raju on percussions, Rubin on flute and Siddhartha on effects, Kutumba has, to a great extent, succeeded in its original mission of popularising local instruments among the youth who are more inclined towards Western music. “We focus more on the youth and want to show everyone that our local instruments can be used to create great music,” says Pavit. Although they move ahead without specific plans, they have gained popularity because of their frequent concerts. “We do have a tag of holding a lot of concerts; we hold around two to three live performances in a month,” says Arun Gurung, the band manager, having performed in 27 districts of Nepal already.
The band shares that most of them were organisers long before they grouped; they used to ask other artists to play local instruments at ticketing events. However, they felt that such performances still lacked the proper representation of the instruments and it substantially lacked a ‘Nepali touch’. Therefore, they set out together with their first folk instrumental performance on May 8, 2004, at Patan Museum. Though the crowd was limited to their own circle of friends, they were encouraged by the response. They slowly rose to fame as they frequently appeared at youth events and also numerous fund-raising concerts. Today, they have four albums—Forever Nepali Folk Instrumental, Folk Roots, Naulo Bihani and Mithila—to their credit.
Kutumba creates magic on stage with their instrumental numbers—they blend traditional folk tunes with their improvised ideas and sounds. They believe in experimenting and bringing up new tunes every now and then. During one of their previous concerts at the Nepal Tattoo Convention in August, they jammed with a metal band, E.Quals, and brought about a unique sound—a mixture of folk tunes with metal—and wooed the crowd. Their effort to preserve our national culture is commendable. “We have gathered local artists from different places and shared our skills,” says Gurung. He further explains that they learnt playing the arabajo when they travelled to a village in Pokhara and added the instrument to their portfolio. It is a string instrument which has almost disappeared from popular musical discourse. They also included folk tunes from the Tarai on their latest album Mithila. “People remember songs from the hills when we talk about folk music, but we wanted to incorporate tunes from all regions,” says Pavit.
The band is now ready for another concert—Kutumba Collaborates at Gurukul. Kutumba will be performing with other artists—guitarist Ashish Chitrakar, Sunit Kansakar who plays the sitar, singers Mica Sundari, Yanik Shrestha and Garima Shah—at theatre group Gurukul on Sept. 4. This is a pre-album event and all the numbers played during the event will be from their new album. The album, which is not named yet, will be launched on Oct. 8, on Ghatasthapana.
Kutumba lives up to their name—a unique bond—as they have successfully brought together compositions from different cultures within our country. They continue to touch the hearts of many, including the young and the old, with their compositions which has been derived from the pristine tunes from all parts of Nepal.
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