Tulkalam’s first album arrives in Dhaka! 

Dhaka has a long tradition of producing experimental music of various genres. One such band is 'Tulkalam,' who released their self-titled debut album on 12 October at 'The Junction' in Niketon. 

The Band consists of Danny Amin on vocals, Faria Ulfath Syed on drums, Azhar Khan and Naushad Ali Husein on guitars and Mustafa Haque on bass. 

"Our songs are inspired by real-life struggles and resilience. Our compositions fuse folk, poetry, rock and disco into a sound that defies classification—which is probably a reflection of the fact that the five of us come from very different musical backgrounds," explained Naushad.  

Their background resonates with their music and trying to combine various genres gives them the chance to become not only musicians but also storytellers, a direction that band members are willfully taking. 

Naushad further explained about the origins of the band. "The band takes its name from life's unpredictable twists and turns and serves as a reminder of resilience and creative verve. Basically, our band philosophy is that things won't always go your way, especially in a chaotic city like ours,"

"And just as people do, you have to get up, dust off, and get on with life. And our way of dealing with it is through music, through Tulkalam." 

It isn't easy to put together an album when most debutants are focusing on releasing singles but Tulkalam did the opposite. It took them two years to finish the album and there were some great moments and bad times during that period. 

"The obvious high point for all of us is the moment of launching this album. The feeling of finally getting on stage during the launch, playing the songs, and the way people vibed with our music —it's an incomparable feeling," Naushad told The Business Standard. 

The lowest point, for Tulkalam, came in October last year. Just as their songs were shaping up for release, Cyclone Sitrang flooded their recording studio. "We lost at least half a year until finally relocating to a different studio, and resuming our work there," he recounted on the band's very demoralising setback.  

When it comes to the album launch, the show was very cosy. The energy from the audience was pleasant, nearly everyone seemed to be enjoying the music. You could tell that the people who were helping to put on the show were a tight-knit group. Comedian Bipro opened the show with some hard-hitting political jokes and also touched on 'nepotism.' 

In the middle of playing "Tomake niye lekha" or 'Jeo na,' the band paused to wish their photographer a big "happy birthday."

Tulkalam's music is available to stream on music platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Tulkalam is now ready to hit the stage, perform and take their songs to larger audiences.

"We just started. So we'll have to take it step by step as well as juggle the different facets of music while being grateful that we are able to do any of it in the first place," concluded Naushad.