MUMBAI: After an illustrious journey of 23 years, Susmit Sen, renowned guitarist and co-founder of the iconic band Indian Ocean has decided to end his association with the band.

Speaking with Radioandmusic.com Sen says, “I have left Indian Ocean to start something individually. I have been doing my solo activities with my band ‘The Susmit Sen Chronicles’ from the past seven to eight months. It will be a seven member band.” 

Apart from Sen, ‘The Susmit Sen Chronicles’ consists of Anirban Ghosh, Nikhil Vasudevan, Amit Sharma, Sudhir Rikhari, Rajiv Raja and Gyaan Singh.

Susmit feels, “Right now, I am at my creative best. Indian Ocean is a sound and style we created. After more than 27 years of playing I feel that I am brimming with more compositions, more music – but in a grammar and style that is different from Indian Ocean. So I feel restricted now as I am sure must be the case with the others as well. I strongly believe that my moving on will be beneficial for both Indian Ocean and my creative expression as well.”

Sen is currently producing an album for Harjeet that will be out by September and is practicing for live concerts. “We have started practicing and will be on stage performing soon,” he adds.

Meanwhile, Nikhil Rao will be replacing Sen in Indian Ocean. Sen says “Rao is a promising young guitar player with a lot of Indian-ness in his playing. He will be able to give a lot of impetus to Indian Ocean as he will not only add value to concerts but will also be able to create new music with the band in their signature style.”

Sen along with Asheem Chakravarty founded Indian Ocean way back in 1990. Rahul Ram and Amit Kilam joined the two later and the long-time band members went on to create some timeless music in albums including Desert Rain, Kandisa, Jhini, Black Friday and 16/330 Khajoor Road.

Recalls Ram, “It was an exciting time, since we were creating completely new music. We had very few concerts, so we practiced very hard and made our stage act really tight.”

It has been a long, eventful career spanning across more than 23 years with an inventory of many firsts. Indian Ocean is the country's first band to have released a live album.

They are also the first band ever in India to have a documentary made on them. The film Leaving Home directed by Jaideep Varma won the National award and is the first ever indigenously made documentary film to have achieved a commercial release in the country.

Adding to the list of firsts, Parragon Publishing India will release a coffee-table book on Indian Ocean later this year. There will be a multi-city concert tour at the time of the book launch. Sen will be performing with the band for the promotion of the book, in what will be his last and farewell tour with the Indian Ocean lineup.

Kilam says “We created music for ourselves, from the heart. And we found, to our delight, that audiences loved the honesty and the freshness in our music. We have many productive years ahead of us, and Indian Ocean is keenly looking forward to our new phase. We have always wanted to make music that does not adhere to any set formula. This new change will ensure that the band will again break the formula that it had created for itself over the years! We will continue to grow and make music that will gladden the hearts of us and our audiences.”