AND THE BEAT GOES ON

New Delhi's Peter Cat Recording Co., whose 2019 album Bismillah received rave reviews both in India and abroad, hope that their upcoming US tour is a step towards bigger things

- Bhanuj Kappal

After a decade of slow grind in the Indian rock underground, New Delhi’s Peter Cat Recording Co. were finally gathering steam in 2020. The band’s woozy, genre-blending sound, refined over a series of independently released records and freewheeling live shows, had earned them a record deal with Parisian boutique label Panache a couple of years earlier. Bismillah, their first album on the label, dropped in 2019 to rave reviews domestically and internationally. They were busy lining up a European tour when a deadly new virus hit the headlines, throwing their—and the world’s—plans onto the rubbish pile.