This past weekend, I was honored to be able to experience the Peter Cat Recording Co in the flesh, with their performance of songs from their newest album, Beta. This album was released a hefty 5 years after their last studio album, Bismillah. After their new-found success during COVID-19, the band went on to perform for their new-found fanbase on the Good Luck Beta Tour 24. They are in the process of traveling to perform a total of 77 shows across three continents, selling out a majority of these venues to various crowds.
I can best describe Peter Cat Recording Co. (PCRC) as an Indian psychedelic jazz band, taking elements of transcontinental sounds to create a movie-like experience with their studio albums. Having about a decade-long tenure as a band, they’ve come to offer an evolved sense of introspection, utilizing a collection of instruments to create soundtracks to the human experience. Such as seen in A Portrait of a Time: 2010-2016, they conceptualize paintings of convoluted emotions by making fun of their own turmoil, giving a nostalgic and homely resonance.
The show began with the song “Flowers R Blooming,” starting off the show on their foundational themes of felicity; through lyrics of “For Changing Is Living/And Living is Love,” they share a valuable insight of living with a far more fulfilling and redeeming perspective of life. This song broke tears out of me, forging an emotional connection with the band that’s rare for me to encounter. This song gave me an outlet to express that recognition and embracement of who I am is the best thing I can do to spread love to myself and others.
With maturing comes sacrifice, and ultimately growth in our ability to cope and humor our sensitivities in our emotions. PCRC audiolizes these lessons with tracks such as the leading single “People Never Change,” where they renounce the power of others to impact our moods and confidence. Lifafa, the lead singer, reverses this happier tune with a melancholy song “Heera” from their previous studio album, reflecting a low point in the singer’s life and standing at a crossroads of whether it’s too late to “live a lovely life.” The repetition of the hollow guitar riff with the dissonant tones of the keyboard deliver a ghoulish feeling of uncertainty. As expanded upon by the band, being a man entails becoming sensible to your emotions and wearing them for the world to see—which is what Lifafa demonstrates when he lets loose and dances along to his pain in the guitar riff.
I appreciate the band’s diversified sound, as lead singer Lifafa has described the instrumentation to be specially tailored to the idea of what the song’s goal is. The creative process of starting with the idea of the song leads the band to switch around instruments to what feels right. While members progressively came and went towards the inception of the band, the 5 members we see have become comfortable together over the course of 6 years. Their versatility reeks of the experience this band has acquired, providing quite the alluring experience to their curated audience. The Echo Lounge in Dallas accommodated PCRC with a notable elegance, having a sophisticated theater-like quality that felt appropriate for the echoing heartfelt odes.
On my ever-prolonged journey of learning what it takes to be a man—to be the best me I can be—this band shares valuable perspectives that come from a long pipeline of experience and cross-cultural wisdom cross-culturally. In Beta, their new project released earlier last month, they continue to document their maturation in life, coming to share feelings associated with love and connection, as well as overcoming anxious thoughts that keep us from seeing the absolute beautiful world we see around us. Although the music can sometimes seem heavy, I commemorate PCRC for displaying a raw and vulnerable feat of their humanity. They connect time into thoughtful reflections through their music—and, in a way, connecting us to our own.
