Baring Their Souls

Baring Their Souls

About four years ago, aswekeepsearching launched on to the indie music scene in the city and created quite a stir. Their philosophy was simple — to just enjoy organic music, feel the beats, let your mind sway to the melody. They took their unique sound on tour across Europe and have performed at music festivals such as dunk! Festival (Belgium), Pelagic Fest (Germany) and Bacardi Weekender NH7 (India) among others.
 
The band currently consists of Uddipan Sarmah, Shubham Gurung, Robert Alex and Sambit Chatterjee and has just released their third album Rooh. Their debut album launched in 2015 was called Khwaab, and the second one was titled Zia, which released two years ago. “Rooh is much more emotional and minimal in terms of songwriting and arrangement. It’s way more mature and refined version of aswekeepsearching, keeping in mind the ‘less is more’ approach. It’s much more lyrical and vocal driven, something that we haven’t done in our past albums. It’s an experiment that we’ve always wanted to try for a larger, more approachable audience. So far we’ve got a very positive response and we’re quite happy with what we’ve done with Rooh,” says Shubham Gurung, who plays the keyboard and guitar. 

The band hosted listening parties across various cities in India to celebrate the launch of their album. “The listening sessions we held for Rooh (as well as for Zia in 2017), turned out to be so much more than we imagined them to be. The main idea was to find a way to get our music straight to our fanbase, to make people aware of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, in a one-on-one setting,” says Robert Alex on bass. 

He believes that these sessions have a deep impact on someone who is listening to their music for the first time. “When the music began, we could see people shutting their eyes and drifting away to their own imagination of what the soundscapes made them experience. It made the connect between the artist and the listener a lot more personal,” he adds. 

This album is an extension of the members, as a group as well as individual musicians. “We’ve experienced a lot of ups and downs in our lives individually and together as a band. This in turn has changed our perception of music, our surroundings and writing in general. We’ve now understood what works for us and what does not. Our musical taste has evolved during the last couple of years, our whole aesthetic has changed, visually and sonically. At this point of time, we just want to write and express what we’re going through in our lives, which is the most natural thing that comes to us as artists,” says Gurung. 

Their latest songs speak of the best and worst feelings they’ve experienced together as a band. “The whole album, from top to bottom, is a journey. The songs sequentially describe our lives we’ve faced through along the way,” he adds. 

The band already introduced traditional Indian instruments like the tabla and sitar in their second album to diversify their soundscape. While Sambit Chatterjee played the tabla in Hope Unfolds and Sleep Awake on Zia, the band collaborated with other musicians such as Rishab Seen to play the sitar on Sometime Somewhere and Ajay Jayanthi to play the strings for songs in Zia and Rooh. 

In this album, they worked with Alla Rakha Kalawant for a track. “We’ve always had an affinity towards blending Western songwriting and Indian traditional instrumentation. On hearing the basic structure of the song Aas Paas, Sambit instantly suggested using a sarangi and working with Alla Rakha Kalawant for it, and here we are. We were completely floored after hearing what he had composed for the song,” says Alex. 

The band recently performed at the first ever OnePlus Music Festival at DY Patil Stadium, Mumbai, which also featured international pop stars such as Dua Lipa and Katy Perry. “We have always dreamt of playing a stadium gig, and we’ve been a long-time fans of Dua Lipa and Katy Perry, so this is an absolute dream come true for us. Hopefully, we converted a lot of people to aswekeepsearching fans,” says Gurung. 

The post rock band believes that the genre is still relatively new in a country where Hindi music is primarily Bollywood. “We have quite a few Hindi rock bands, but within the post rock genre, I don’t think there are bands playing this or a similar style of music. Ours is a country that predominantly has an audience for commercial Bollywood music, but the culture of independent music has been growing rapidly over the past decade. There has been an increase in the frequency of large scale music festivals that have hosted acts like God is an Astronaut, 65dos, Explosions In the Sky, Tides from Nebula, Tiny fingers and so on. The day when we will have a post rock-dedicated festival here, doesn’t seem to be that far away,” says Alex. 

Their plans for 2020 include bringing out a whole lot of new music. “We have already started writing new music and churning out ideas. We intend to release an EP mid next year. We also have some collaborations in the works, but more on that soon,” he ends. 

Enjoyed reading The Bridge Chronicle?
Your support motivates us to do better. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay updated with the latest stories.
You can also read on the go with our Android and iOS mobile app.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
The Bridge Chronicle
www.thebridgechronicle.com