In ’Hotel Kali’, a cocktail of Krautrock and Western classical

Hotel Kali’s self-titled debut album crisscrosses between ambient music, synth pop, rock and industrial dissonance. Based in Kolkata and Berlin, the band comprises electronic artists Varun Desai and Suyasha Sengupta, with double-bassist Debjit Mahalanobis and multi-instrumentalist Theresa Stroetges forming Hotel Kali’s acoustic section. Across seven songs, the 46-minute album has an improvisational quality, given Hotel Kali’s origin as a one-time gig without plans for an official release. “Here, we tried to retain our live aspect, by keeping our mistakes in, because we don’t see them as mistakes, but personality.” Hotel Kali emerged from an arts residency organised by Border Movement, a cross-cultural programme of the Goethe-Institut that promotes collaboration and engagement between German and South Asian electronic music scenes. We will sound even better live.” The multicultural Hotel Kali experience has been “beautiful”, Stroetges says.