DELHI-BASED INDIE act Mocaine’s latest project, The Birth of Billy Munro, is an ambitious undertaking — the full-length concept album is accompanied by a 13,000-word novella and an upcoming short film. “Around the beginning of 2020, I found myself in the midst of a world of change and inspiration. I had a narrative about a fictional author, his mental illnesses (agoraphobia, paranoid schizophrenia and delusion) and his writing process. And I worked on a soundtrack for it,” says Amrit Mohan, the man behind the outfit. The 11-track album was released last week and is deep, dark and introspective. The album also features drummer Varun Sood, producer Aman Arakh and bassist Kabir Agarwal, who each bring their own flavours to the project.
What sparked the idea for the concept was Australian musician Nick Cave’s novel The Death of Bunny Munro, “Nick’s work was the first and biggest source of inspiration that accelerated the creation of Billy. After that, the story pretty much wrote itself,” says the artiste whose previous work includes the 2018 EP Portrait of Dali. Amrit says that his music is inspired by rock and blues, and draws heavily from the sound of Seattle in the early ’90s. The album tells the story of the protagonist, Billy, fighting with his inner demons and then finally embracing who he is. It starts with the song Billy, and takes us on a journey with tracks like Pistol Envy, Narcissus, Did You Kill All Those People, Mister? and Daylight Sheen. The languid drawls, rock-adjacent drums and heavy guitar riffs really capture the Americana spirit that Amrit is inspired by. The atmosphere created by the album is one of mystery, chaos, violence and ultimately bleak acceptance.
Up next, the artiste has big plans for more projects. “This is just the first part of the Billy Munro universe. Aman and I are already working on wrapping up the second part, so there’s that to look forward to. Each part of the universe will have its own album, a book, and a film,” he concludes.
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