Chennai indie musicians give their hats to creative collaborators

One of the most attractive – and most comfortable – numbers to come out of Chennai this year is a joint project by Manchild (Sachin Rajeev) of Kochi and Michael Timothy of Chennai, both based in the city. “I wrote the song in 2020, when I and a lot of people my age were going through a really tough time for personal and professional reasons. So I wrote about the light at the end of the tunnel,” Manchild says.

At the end of one particularly harrowing day in June, Manchild turned to Instagram Live and played ‘better. It was half past three in the morning, but Michael was awake and heard him. “She sang the Malayalam version that night, so I didn’t understand it that much, but I still felt something because of the song. When she ended her life I called her and said, ‘I don’t know if you can sing What are you planning to do with it, but whatever it is, I want to produce it’.

Another lockdown track that took its time shaping up is Mr Cave’s ‘Pathai’. “It was the first track we started writing for our Quarantino album back in 2020. We had a really interesting time and trying to get the song right,” said city indie musician Mr. Cave Said about the song, which was finally seen. Daylight at the end of March.

Released on Mr Cave’s Spotify, YouTube and other channels, the song has been released primarily for five Chennai-based artists: Kevin, Anand Kashinath, Vaishakh Somnath, Baidurjya Banerjee and Vinay Ramakrishnan.

There’s a reason the song took two years to take shape, even as the entire album inspired by it was ready within months. Several productions were attempted and eliminated; Many musicians numbered their instruments before the composers found harmonies in the final version. Kevin adds, “We are also indebted to a few other artists who didn’t make it into the final version of the song: Madhav Nair who played some flute and Akkarsh N Kashyap who played some violin bits.”

‘Pathai’ by Mr. KV

“By the time I reached Baidurzya, it was 2021, who managed to pull off the soul of the song: guitar solos. was one of a kind and a rare sample,” said Kevin, “It has to be one of my favorite drum productions. [by Vinay] With an elegantly placed polyrhythm by Kashi on post chorus/solo, and the option of having an atmospheric guitar fill.”

He concluded with this: “‘Pathai’ feels a bit generic and loopy in retrospect, but I like the small gaps and changes we get to bring along with the production. It’s not a milestone for music that’s going to be a part of it.” It brings but to our ability to have a song that lets us play in our strong suits.

Indie musician Rupini Raveendran

While Kevin and the team created and recreated magic together in Chennai, Rupini Raveendran’s gentle Hindi-Urdu track, ‘Maybe Main Hoon’, was a collaboration of KM Music Conservatory’s alumni located in several cities.

across borders and time

Rupini shuttles between Bangalore and Chennai, depending on where her music takes her. “I came back to India from London early last year. When the lockdown was relaxed there, only my sister and I could go for long drives together. At that time, traveling by car felt like a relief. However, when I came to India, traveling by car was a tedious process. The idea of ​​my song stems from this, traveling as a cause for concern versus traveling as a cause for wandering. ,

To take this idea forward, Rupini reached out to her batchmate Pranav, who had gone to America. Lyricist Brijesh Joshi, who also plays and writes for Bombay Bandook Band, was based in Mumbai, while mastering was done by Nitin Muralikrishna based in Pune. “People were shifting homes and countries during the production period. Though we were all good friends, none of us could meet while making this song,” says Rupini. And yet, she calls the whole process “seamless,” with songs typed on WhatsApp and tunes set over video calls. “We wanted to make a song that you can play endlessly on long drives,” says Rupini. And I think we’ve managed to achieve that.