Delhi’s socially awkward, punk/pop rock/noise/lo-fi band Hoirong released their second album, Dandaniye Aparaadh, on Bandcamp as the band’s special Independence Day treat. An album with a title as heavily satirical, it’s no surprise that the members went through a couple of huddle discussions about writing something politically loud, as part of the occasion. Hoirong’s reputation does precede itself. But, punk evangelist and ex-Lounge Piranha rocker, Kamal Singh, doesn’t seem to want to give it too much importance; “We’re not politically inclined or anything,” he says, “Like everybody in the world, you have some opinions, and there are some things that you don’t like. It’s just like, some things are not cool; there are those angles here and there, but I don’t want to talk about it, and make it too serious.” And, stray away from serious discussions is what we did; ask Kamal about what the idea behind Hoirong’s latest addition is, and he snickers with a cynical chuckle that almost insults your intelligence. He answers, “It’s mostly about Delhi. I’ve been here for a year now. It’s about the city, and the things that happen here, and the music that goes on here.”

The fifteen track album – up for free stream on Bandcamp – is a product of hours of eventfully aimless jams, and moments of epiphanies during rehearsals. Kamal seems bemused when asked about the band’s songwriting process, because there isn’t one. Just like the band’s foul-mouthed, lazy, beer-bum, anarchist personality, songs are structured out of breaking noise apart, and putting it back together, rarely with any conscious motive. Kamal confesses to how the band likes to “fuck around with noises.” “We jam when we’re rehearsing for a gig or something,” he tells us, “Like, also randomly playing and stuff. So those things trigger some thoughts. There are nice parts that we try to remember and record, and those things get dwelled upon.” As he says, the process is “just natural.”

The band’s debut, TROTPOWAHVHP, released last year, featured the crass punk attitude in its sound with hyper lo-fi production; Kamal Singh seems to have tweaked the sound just a bit for the new release. He says, “The new songs are mostly choruses, it’s not like verse then chorus, or anything like that. It’s mostly choruses. So that way it’ll be different than the first album. There are a lot more dancey grooves on it, for the electronic scene [cynical chuckle, again] in Delhi.” But the band’s undiluted noise stays intact with this new record; Kamal hints that ‘noise’, to a sense of honesty and not giving a fuck. According to Kamal there is an extent to which the rawness of the album is deliberate; steering away from marking Hoirong as just a noise band, he admits to strong Neanderthal-esque motives with the lo-fi production and home recordings. “I can’t afford to go to a studio which would be a good thing to do,” Kamal says, “But we can’t afford to do that. It is what it is. That’s all we can afford, that’s all we can do, and anyway we’re surrounded by all this fucking noise. So it’s cool.”

Hoirong’s next appearance is going to be in front of an extremely lucky set of punks at Control Alt Delete at the Blue Frog in Mumbai on September 14.

Stream the album by Hoirong below: