The Midival Punditz, made up of Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj, have long been in the independent music scene, and are considered one of the pioneering electronic acts in the country. After a gap of six years, the duo will release its fourth studio album ‘Light’ on 28 April, 2015. It comes as a follow up to their highly successful 2009 release ‘Hello Hello’, which was selected in Amazon’s top picks that year. In an interview with Radioandmusic.com, Raina offers insights into the album, its collaborations and more.
Tell us about the album. Why the name ‘Light’?
This is our fourth studio album. It has been conceptualised to be presented live with a full band, in its entirety with all songs being performed in the same flow as in the studio version. The album has strong roots in various styles of Indian folk music and also our signature style of electronica. We have collaborated with very talented artists from across India to showcase various folk styles such as Carnatic, Rajasthani and UP, namely Malini Awasthi, Papon, Kutle Khan, flautist Pandit Ajay Prasanna, Baiju Dharmajan among others.
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The entire album is like one full show, performed live. We realised that today, the lighting – whether it is used on stage, visuals or in music itself -is really important. Even in music, darkness and light relate to moods. We would always visualise the level of light in a song or a part of an entire show.
Light was very important to the conceptualisation of this album. The entire album goes through degrees of brightness or darkness and that pretty much the reason why we called it ‘Light’. It encapsulated the entire essence of the album.
What inspired you to include folk influences for this album?
We have worked with Indian classical music in our previous releases, but this time around while we were sketching the album out, we naturally felt a leaning towards folk music. Also, over the years, we had developed a great admiration for the folk singers we have worked with, and wanted to explore that. Indian folk has a certain rustic and unfinished beauty to it, which we wanted to tap into.
For how long have you been working on ‘Light’?
We had been working on ‘Light’ for almost a year-and-a-half. We wanted a single string of thoughts to tie-in the album, so to maintain that continuity of treatment and thought, the tracks were all written one after the other. Which was the natural way to go about it, as this particular album is a performance-based concept record. The album is like a full Midival Punditz show performed live.
How did the collaborations for the album happen?
Our collaborations always emerge organically and very naturally while we are writing the music. We tend to work with musicians we have shared the stage with or seen at some show or online. Sometimes it is also just because we met someone and really liked their creative vibe. Kutle Khan had been singing for us on stage, before he recorded with us and we knew from the first time that we definitely needed him on the new album. Pandit Ajay Prasanna has been like a ‘3rd Pundit’ over the last 10 years that he has worked with us. It is pretty much impossible to imagine a Punditz album without him on it. Malini Awasthi had recorded a track with us for our last album after Salim Merchant recommended her. We really liked her work and wanted to explore the more UP folk side of her singing. Todd (Michaelsen) has been a collaborator with Karsh Kale and we have heard him on Karsh’s albums before, so when we wanted an English singer, he was pretty much our 1st choice.
Tell us about the song and lyric writing processes.
We always tend to write the music first, for every track. We start from a sound, or a beat, or maybe a musical loop. It is only later in the process that we decide whether a song needs vocals or lyrics to complete it. We then figure out what kind of genre the vocals should be (classical or folk or English). After that we write some temp vocal melody and lyrics and call the singer in to record. Sometimes we call the singer in with only the music written and see if it inspires him/her to sing something traditional over it.
What was the experience of adding the ‘lyric’ element to your music? Was it challenging?
Lyrics are always challenging to write, as they completely take over the song. When we first started we used to have 80 per cent instrumental music and only started writing lyrics in the past few years to our songs. Instrumental music leaves a lot to the listener’s imagination and that is something we like. So, normally we think very hard before we decide to add lyrics to a song.
Is this the first time Gaurav has offered vocals for a track? What is special about ‘Don’t Let Go’?
This track is a dedication to one of our dearest friends Shital Dhaul, who passed away untimely. The news reached us while we were working on this album. We could not work for a few days after hearing the shocking news. When we finally got back in to the studio, we knew we had to honour our friend with a track that is reminiscent of her personality – essentially positive and happy. So we started with happy major chords and drum ‘n bass. ‘Don’t Let Go’ is more on the positive side of things. This has been the first time I (Gaurav) have sung on a Punditz track, along with Todd Michaelsen.
Will the tracks have music videos?
We are working on a couple of videos and should have the video for ‘Baanwarey’ out very soon, done by the talented artist Naasha Mehta (who has also done our album cover) and Santana Issar from Delhi.
Will ‘Light’ be released through Six Degrees Records? In which countries will it be available?
Yes… Light will be released worldwide on Six Degrees Records, except in India, where it is on Times Music.
Apart from the multi-city tour, are you planning any other promotions for ‘Light’?
We will first do this 4-city tour and then plan another round of shows in the coming months. We are also looking at doing a lot of online promotions.
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline, individually or together?
A fairly large part of the year will be spent in touring and promoting this record in India and abroad. We will also be writing new material for the next record, as that process starts almost instantaneously after one album gets done.
Also, Diageo recently approached us to do an interesting digital mentorship program called Step Up by Johnnie Walker. Which we thought was really interesting to be a part of. We got to work with some budding talents in India and got to understand the minds of the younger ones. Step Up is also a platform for new talent to shine through and make a name for themselves. We try and mentor 3 producers and help them understand the art of making electronic music. We give them certain tasks that help us understand what they need to learn in order to progress as producers. The Grand Finale of Step Up, which will be held on 7 April at blueFROG Mumbai, is something we are very excited about. We are confident that all three have proved themselves worthy of it.
