Neil Mukherjee is a guitarist from Kolkata who has training from Trinity College, London and plays a bunch of genres on a Western guitar. This much information is enough to conclude that his latest single ‘It Could Be Rain’ will feature a high level of playing and musicianship. But music isn’t just that. It’s emotion, songwriting, feel and a ton of other intangibles that simultaneously inspire listeners and frustrate musicians as they drive themselves nuts trying to find that elusive thing. In a way, ‘It Could Be Rain’ approaches its musical content from the perspective of systems. That works.

The track is played on a ‘custom eight-string guitar in fingerstyle’ and incorporates a bunch of techniques and so on (I’m sure), but to the normal listener, what is important is that it sounds pleasant. The song also has melodic influences from ragas as well as Brazilian rhythm, but what that translates as is a song with two clear sides to it; an ‘Indian’ side and a ‘Brazilian’ side. Even though they are combined with each other at some moments over the song’s 4 minutes, it’s pretty easy to tell the two main influences apart. That helps the song in a way; it’s not like there’s a push of a button and the track goes from one thing to another, but the differences in form are clear enough that they establish some sort of structure. The intro sounds decidedly Indian classical, and all niceties aside, we are made well aware of this. The notes are chosen from our style of music and bend in that vocal way our music does. This makes the transition into the more up-tempo sections clear and easy to catch (if a bit telegraphed). The rhythms the song shift into are jumpy and worth a few head nods. The particular cadence and form of what we know to be Brazilian music are truly fun to listen to and are presented well here. 

‘It Could Be Rain’ really doesn’t try to do much, which is a good thing. It leans on its influences and stays away from combining them in a harsh manner, which results in a decent song, which to be fair is more important that all the theory, technique and training in the world. Neil has all those things in spades, obviously, but he also makes the all-important choice to write a solid song using those skills and not make his technical chops be the center of attention. That’s what makes him and this song worth listening to. 

Listen to "It Could Be Rain"