A restored mosque, New Delhi.
These days have been interesting, as music has been transcending its lyrical and melodic boundaries to open up to me. I’ve been finding more meaning that what’s been served (or maybe not). Lately I’ve been seeing space in music.
I can possibly never thank my friend Firas enough for introducing me
to Coke Studio Pakistan two years ago on an afternoon metro ride to college. While
he was keen on the Persian Folk poetry, explaining to me the meanings and
metaphors in each line, I remember being completely lost somewhere, in the
music, thinking to me ‘this is really fresh stuff!’ Such a fresh contemporary
take on folk tunes! It was Zeb and Haniya.
Then I heard their brilliant Coke studio collaboration with
Javed Bashir. Downloading their album soon after, I heard the original version
of the same song which I found to be far more compelling than the coke studio
one. The song feels empty, almost like hints of ideas loosely strung together rather
than a sound structure with gaping voids. For me this was just enough space to
be listening and not be listening to the song at the same time. Much later
Haniya also talked about it in their collaboration for the Dewarists.
Somewhere (14:26) in this brilliant documentary about their
music, Icelandic post rock band Sigur Ros mention ‘Space is what we have here,
in our personal life and in the land as well. [...] people are unconsciously
aware of giving you space.’ You have to watch (or at least listen to) the whole
movie to know what they really mean here. My Norwegian friend from child hood Pål Moddi
Knutsen now sings and writes music and performs all over Europe as ‘Moddi’. His
music lingers in my head for much longer than it’s actually playing for. Sombre
and spaced out.
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