There has never been a better time to be a music artist in India. After a decade-and-a-half of performing covers, imitating trends from the West and moaning about lack of quality equipment, musicians in India (rock acts, electronic collectives and DJs) have finally begun composing quality original music and disseminating the material through all possible channels. Picking up on this boom and the opportunity to make a difference to the growing independent music scene, the British Council has launched Soundpad.

An ambitious new project, Soundpad explores the art of studio production in music, providing upcoming artists an opportunity to craft and chisel their music, while also giving them a platform to showcase their output. Four bands – Medusa (Bombay), Swarathma (Bangalore), Advaita and Superfuzz (Delhi) – will collaborate with legendary UK music producer John Leckie and Dan Austin, recording new material and spending time in the studio in October this year.

Leckie is one of Britain’s most legendary and prolific music producers. He began his career at Abbey Road Studios as an in-house engineer; he’s worked with Pink Floyd and all of the Beatles individually. Later, he produced such high-profile albums as The Bends by Radiohead, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, the eponymous debut album of The Stone Roses and The Verve’s A Storm in Heaven.

With the Soundpad project, Leckie hopes to give Indian bands an experience of how record production is done in the UK at the highest level and encourage cross pollination. At the auditions, he was amused by how ‘American’ many of the bands turned out. “A lot of music was derivative of American rock. It can be a good thing, since that’s probably what everyone is listening to these days,” he said.

The British Council’s partnership with Leckie is just one of many firsts. Independent musicians in the country have always been limited by a D-I-Y ethic: composing tunes in home studios, mastering tracks on borrowed time at professional studios and relying largely on word-of-mouth and the internet for distribution. Lack of venues and laughable amounts paid for gigs also contributed to the artist’s downfall and cynicism. Signing on with major record labels has always been like a double-edge sword. Pitiful royalties, complete commercial ownership, pay-for-yourvideo policies, outrageous artist control and three-album deals, have meant that even bands like Pentagram have continued to work with an independent record label.

Soundpad sessions not only address all of these woes but also bring out the best out the musicians and producers by creating a space away from the commercial pressures of the conventional music industry. In other words, producing with the backing of a major label but with the freeom of an indie.

The model also allows the musicians to work across platforms. Through RadioVerve, the British Council’s online partner for Soundpad, the bands’ music and profiles will be accessible through a website – allowing them to reach wider audiences and win new fans. The site will enable music downloads, watch videos of band performances and documentaries of the recording process, sell music tracks and will also encourage conversation through the blog. The recording sessions will be followed by an album deal with Counter Culture records and a three-city tour, with performances at recognisable venues in each of those cities. In Mumbai, for instance, each band will perform on select dates at the Blue Frog, the British Council’s venue partner for the Soundpad. After taking the bands across the country, the British Council will take the bands on a brief UK tour early next year.

Another focus of the project is to encourage dialogue amongst Indian musicians and UK collaborators about the issues faced by the growing alternative music scene in India. A film crew will document the series, capturing the creative/studio process and the conversations that emerge from the collaboration.

This exciting new project is a sure sign that the British Council’s hand is firmly on the pulse of the contemporary, young and rising image of India. The country’s booming economy has created bigger disposable incomes, which translates into more people frequenting venues, which double by the month; the launch of MySpace India and the proliferation of artists across genres is proof, if any was needed, that the Soundpad could be the beginning of a long and successful series of partnerships between the British Council.