Khiyo: Bengali Tribute

Back in the autumn of 2015 British-Bengali band Khiyo released an eponymously-titled debut (read the review). When the band’s co-founders, singer Sohini Alam and guitarist-pianist Oliver Weeks, meet me to chat about their long-awaited sophomore album, I remark on the seven-year gap between releases. But, as they make clear, there’s clearly not been much navel-gazing going on. Since we last met, they’ve worked on film soundtracks (including one for the award-winning documentary Rising Silence) and toured extensively with Akram Khan’s dance company, Kishon Khan’s Bangladeshi-Cuban outfit Lokkhi Terra and, in the case of Alam, the GRRRL collective.

For anyone who isn’t yet familiar with Khiyo, their USP is reinterpretations of classic Bangladeshi songs that showcase Alam’s gorgeous voice. As Alam explains: “People in general know Indian classical, Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian Afrobeat… but most people say, ‘oh, you sing in Bengali, what is that? Is it like Bollywood?’ And that’s the problem. This music needs to reach people outside just the Bangladeshi diaspora. With such a rich musical history, it makes no sense to me that in the world music pantheon there are so few of us [singing in Bangla].”

Watch - Khiyo perform 'Dhono Dhanno Pushpo Bhora':

Weeks’ fascination with all things Bengali initially started on a school orchestra trip to Calcutta. “I was ill for most of it,” he winces at the recollection. “We did outdoor gigs in the heat with clouds of mosquitoes everywhere, where you could barely hear us over the traffic noise…” Not exactly love at first sight then. “Maybe it’s sheer bloody-mindedness, but I thought, let’s go and see what this place is really like, so I went back on a gap year.”

Weeks admits he struggled to appreciate Bengali music at first, but a chance encounter with a Baul mystic convinced him of its merits and he ended up writing his dissertation on Baul music. Back in the UK, he founded Parapar in 2002 with singer-songwriter Moushumi Bhowmik and when Alam stepped in to dep for Bhowmik in 2007, the duo decided to form Khiyo.

“When we started out, the whole point of Khiyo was taking heritage music and giving it a London sound because, like me, there are so many third culture individuals,” says Alam. “I think that’s why Khiyo appeals to a lot of people who are non-Bengali, because the concept is of belonging to multiple places, whether that’s Bangladesh or another country. So a lot of the songs reflect the nostalgia of someone who is a third culture individual, and I think in that sense the heritage pieces will always be there, but we’re getting more and more into writing our own material.”

The new album is called Bondona, which means to pay tribute or homage to something. The title comes from their song ‘Lungi Bondona’, written in 2015 for a guy in the US who wanted a theme tune for his lungi (South Asian man-skirt) company. “We decided we were going to use the song ourselves and that it was going to be our tribute to the lungi,” explains Weeks. “And then we were like, there ought to be a saree one,” hence ‘Sharee Bondona’, which also appears on the album.

Lyrics for the original songs were largely written by Leesa Gazi, a writer, film director, actor and co-director, along with Alam, of the arts company Komola Collective. She supplied Alam and Weeks with a load of lyrics that they then worked on together, a process that inevitably involved disagreements, albeit of a good-natured variety: “Olly might say, ‘no, I’m not feeling this one,’ then I’ll say, well hey, maybe you’re not feeling it today, but we’ve got time… When averaging seven years an album, it means you get to change your mind about things!” Alam remarks, smiling.

Despite the banter, their composing partnership clearly works, although there’s an understandable frustration that people tend to congratulate Alam for the singing and Weeks for the music. “I know that the concept of a female composer, especially in South Asia, is relatively rare,” says Alam. “Because I’m the singer, people just assume that Olly has composed it. But Khiyo is something that we actively work on together.”

Several songs evoke a strong sense of Bengali pride imbued with nostalgia, although Alam says it wasn’t a conscious decision to include patriotic songs, rather “it was more of a case of the songs that speak to us – musically or lyrically – and also songs that we feel inspired by. For me, it’s more about homeland, rather than thumping-my-chest patriotism.”

Khiyo’s debut featured ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’, the national anthem of Bangladesh, written by the country’s most celebrated poet, Rabindranath Tagore. “If you look at the lyrics, it’s actually about the smell of the mango groves and how the wind feels on your face. It’s very much the feeling of belonging to a place, or to a group of people – having a sense of belonging no matter where you are, so it’s more that than patriotism as we know it.”

There’s no Tagore on Bondona, but it does include several songs by Kazi Nazrul Islam, another great Bangladeshi poet and musician, and someone who holds huge significance for Alam and her family. “We’re very Nazrul-centric,” she says, explaining that her mother and aunts are also Nazrul sangeet singers. The album starts with a Nazrul belter called ‘Aajke Shaadi’, a song about getting drunk at a princess’ wedding. It’s a cracking opener that showcases the talents of the Khiyo band: bass player Ben Heartland, tabla player Hassan Mohyeddin, and drummer David Ingamells (bandmember Flora Curzon doesn’t play on this cut, but otherwise lends her violin to seven of the tracks). There’s also some extra brass punch on ‘Aajke Shaadi’ courtesy of Alam’s Lokkhi Terra bandmate Justin Thurgur on trombone and Tamar Osborn on sax: “The horns were a very specific choice as we wanted to try and recreate a South Asian Desi wedding sound,” says Alam.

The tempo then changes dramatically with a sweet, lullaby-esque number called ‘Ponkhi’ about a girl talking to a bird. “It’s based on a song I wrote many years ago called ‘Salt Beef & Carrots’,” explains Weeks, conceding that this version is very far removed from the original Cockney music-hall waltz. This moves our conversation onto the topic of food, with Alam exclaiming “we’re both food obsessed!” Consequently she’s delighted about participating at WOMAD’s Taste the World stage in July when she’ll be sharing her chicken korma recipe. “It’s so misrepresented,” she sighs, “it’s like a chicken dessert here!”

It is just a shame then there’s no track called ‘Korma Bondona’ for fans to sing along to, but give it another seven years and perhaps Bengali cuisine will feature on Khiyo’s next album.

Read the review of Bondona

This article originally appeared in the August/September 2022 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe today