Praised as “a true treat for the adventurous ear” (TimeOut NY), Bombay Rickey is a five-piece band with a unique sound evocative of 1960s movie soundscapes. The group plays both covers and original music that borrow equally from the worlds of surf rock, cumbia, spaghetti-Western, and Bollywood, balanced out with soaring operatic vocals.
Since its inception in 2012, Bombay Rickey has become a fixture at Brooklyn mainstay Barbés, as well as having played live on WFMU, opened up for Cambodian psychedelic band Dengue Fever, and having been featured in an ad for Citibank. Bombay Rickey’s debut album, Cinefonia, was named best debut of 2014 by New York Music Daily and received the Vox Pop Award for Best Eclectic Album from the International Music Awards. Most recently, Bombay Rickey was invited to create an opera cabaret based on the life of Yma Sumac for the prestigious PROTOTYPE Festival in New York City. The show ran for seven sold-out performances and was hailed as a “rocking musical show” by the Wall Street Journal.
The band features Kamala Sankaram: vocals, accordion; Drew Fleming: guitar, vocals; and Jeff Hudgins: alto saxophone, vocals; with Nick Cuduahy: bass; and Brian Adler: percussion. All longtime NY musicians, the five members of Bombay Rickey have done previous work with John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Chicha Libre, and Alarm Will Sound, to name a few.