MUMBAI: Electronica producer and composer Donn Bhat releases the first music video from his recently-released album Passenger Revelator, for the song 'Disco Disco'. The music video doubles as a fantastic short film, called Suburban King/Top Girl, made by the Mumbai-based director Aakash Bhatia, which centres around the hugely popular Dahi Handi celebration, during the festival of Janmashtami in Maharashtra.

'Disco Disco' is one the most dance floor-friendly songs from the hugely versatile album, which also contains the incredibly popular 'Stars Align'. With its retro disco sound, the song forms the perfect soundtrack for the documentation of the boisterous Dahi Handi celebrations in the film.

Suburban King/Top-Girl from story-tellers on Vimeo

Says Donn Bhat, "The song 'Disco Disco' was about going back to retro sounds with a contemporary aesthetic, a time between Helen and Action shoes and CGI animation. The most obvious thing would have been to represent the same in a video. But what I really liked about making a music video for 'Disco Disco' with the film Suburban King/Top Girl is that the video now tells its own story while riding on the energy of the track. These are real people with real struggles and real courage in the face of reality, contrasted with a tongue-in-cheek song that says 'do your own thing and have fun'."

Shot over the course of 10 days across various locations in Mumbai during Janmashtami in 2014, Suburban King/Top Girl, explores the culture of the Dahi Handi celebration that is so popular in Maharashtra. Devotees at various locations across the state form groups and practice for months as they build human pyramids to achieve their ultimate goal, which is to form the highest human pyramid. Some of these groups are also given the honour of breaking the famed 'dahi handi' suspended many feet above them.

The stars of this film are one such group from Jogeshwari East, the Jai Jawan Govinda Pathak. In 2012, this group made the Guinness World Records for the highest human pyramid ever made, at 9 tiers, and continues to hold the record today.

The film charmingly intersperses the documentation of various practice sessions by the group – to the music of 'Disco Disco' – with short clips of interviews with fearless and proud members of the group. They tell viewers how it's an absolute honour to be a part of this pyramid, and even more so to be at the top.

Says Aakash Bhatia, "I really like Donn's music and how it isn't genre defined. With this film, the attempt was to blur the lines between a documentary and a music video, hence it seemed like the perfect option to work with Donn. 'Disco Disco' is a great song, and the moment I heard it, I knew it was the song for Suburban King/Top Girl. It works in a beautiful, contrasting way with the film, and consequently makes a point in a subtle manner."

A genre-defying, live experimental electronica producer and composer, Donn Bhat has been a familiar face and name in the music scene since the release of his debut album in 2006. In the years since, his music has been featured on a number of platforms, including the MTV TV series 'Bring On The Night'. In 2011, he was featured as the BBC artist of the month on the Bobby Friction show aired in the UK.

With his desire to begin performing the music he had been writing, in 2013 Donn Bhat put together a band that debuted at Ziro Festival and then went on to play gigs across the country and win a number of fans in the process. The dreamy electro/pop single 'Stars Align' became an especially big hit for Donn Bhat and has received a great deal of radio airplay since.