MUMBAI: Music composer, singer, and guitar player Varun Rajput’s brainchild, Antariksh is a premier Hindi-Rock project based out of New Delhi, India. Rated by MTV as one of the best Hindi Rock artists from India, Antariksh is renowned for bringing multiple authentic genres and styles from the West to mainstream Hindi music.
One could say that the idea of Antariksh was born out of experiment etched in desire. At the beginning of the second decade of 2000s the band’s founder and vocalist Varun Rajput along with his friends & former bandmates (Mridul and GT) felt the need to bridge the gap between their two favourite styles: progressive rock and Indian contemporary sounds in his mother tongue – Hindi. Coming from a Progressive Heavy Metal background, back then it was natural for Varun to want to reach more people with his prog rock musical sensibilities but not get limited by a language barrier. Cut to the next decade, take it as a sign of the band’s evolution or the indie scenario in India opening up a fair bit that Antariksh is now set out to embrace the multi-lingual tag, going forward.
Quest featuring Marty Friedman is an out and out Progressive-Rock meets Fusion track where Antariksh seamlessly blend their Indian as well as Western Influences. It’s a dark, heavy and intricate song incorporating Carnatic music inspired guitar riffs and breakdowns, a hindustani sitar solo (Dhruv Bedi – Parikrama), and of course one of the best guitars players of all time, Marty Friedman (former lead guitar player for Megadeth), gracing the song with a mind blowing guitar solo section.
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The US-born, Japan-based artist is known as one of the most influential and respected guitar players of all times.
Conceptually, the song touches on the topic of breaking the illusions of “me and mine” that most of us live with and get attached to. The song has introspective lyrics (Hindi & English), questioning the true cause of our existence as humans, and how our ego, lust for money, power and greed make us feel separate from the world outside, while the world we see is not reality but a projection onto our consciousness.
