IP Singh and Rajarshi Sanyal of the band Faridkot
| Photo Credit: Special association
Every week in the past, Delhi-based band Faridkot launched its five-song EP, referred to as Ibtida, and mounted it on file label T-Series. The EP, which the band describes as a bouquet of affection songs, arrives after almost a decade of the band’s final album Phir Se, which was launched in 2014, simply three years after its debut album Ek. In between, Faridkot belted out about 10 singles, together with the Bollywood music Jeda Nasha.
Band members IP Singh and Rajarshi Sanyal look again at their 15-year profession within the music trade as an evolution of kinds. On a Zoom name, IP explains, “This sound is where we are at currently, and we are working on some more music and that will be probably different from this because at any point and time our music reflects where we are at and there’s no certain kind of style that we like to go for.”
Artwork of the EP, Ibtida
| Photo Credit:
Special association
The band actively began working on the EP some two months in the past, shares Rajarshi, although the compositions, he says, have been growing time beyond regulation. “The music has been constructed in the past few months. Sonically, we wanted to keep the songs in the present, just to make the EP relevant to where we are musically right now. In fact, the word ibtida means new beginnings and this is our first EP,” he says.
The band meant to discover new sounds, which led its members to experiment with completely different devices in Ibtida. “In one of the songs, a Punjabi song, we have used sitar as a solo instrument; I don’t remember having heard sitar in a Punjabi song. We have also collaborated with musicians Jubin Nautiyal (in the song Main Na Jaanu Kyun) and Raghav Chaitanya (for the track Chhad Ke Na Jaa), who brought their own colours to the EP,” says IP. Rajarshi provides that the compositions within the EP even have nuanced sounds, such because the sound of scratching, writing on a chunk of paper.
While compiling the EP, IP and Rajarshi have been thoughtful of the chronology and silence between the tracks
| Photo Credit:
Special association
Lyrically, whereas compiling the EP, IP and Rajarshi have been thoughtful of the chronology and silence between the tracks. “We are lucky that all the five tracks flow from one to the other. There’s an invisible thread joining them. The songs in the middle have an emotional curve that reaches a crescendo. So, when you start with the first song, the emotional curve begins, it peaks in between, and then we bring it back, completing the whole circle with the last track,” says IP. He shares that Rajarshi would usually hear the songs repeatedly to see the order through which they have been to be positioned within the album. “One had to figure out the aftertaste of the song to see if it is setting the palate for the upcoming song,” he provides.
The band continues to take care of its self-defined style “confused pop”, refusing to be confined to labels. IP’s stance is obvious: “We always want to achieve something that is liked by people, but the confusion is caused by how do we get there. There are 200 million ways to reach there, so we keep exploring them, and you can call this sound confused pop.”
The band members say that they’re planning to launch two extra EPs this 12 months. “Besides that a couple of film projects and OTT projects are going on. We want to explore the sounds and songs of India,” Rajarshi indicators off.
You can take heed to Ibtida on Spotify and different music streaming apps.