MUMBAI: Mumbai based Sanaya Ardeshir aka Sandunes is known for her sundry mishmash of electronica with progressive electronic elements. Sanaya recently played at the first ever edition of Boiler Room at antiSOCIAL on 1 December 2016 along with Oceantied, _RHL, and Actress.
Radioandmusic.com got a chance to talk to Sanaya and she spoke about her childhood, music inspirations, the way of fusing diverse elements in her music, the independent music and musicians outlook and more.
Currently inspired by Hip-hop/RnB/and neo-soul, Sanaya is not working with any record label. She has been releasing music by herself.
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“I think in my heart of hearts I always wanted to be a musician. I think I still want to ‘be a musician’ and achieve oneness with my instrument. As a kid, I grew up listening to lots of my parent’s music, and watching them play a lot. Once I got out of solo piano playing and started jamming with bands, something clicked internally, that communication felt too good and I didn’t want to get into anything else,” said Sanaya.
Talking about her eccentric style she said when it is on the subject of fusing elements and various styles altogether, the gear and the tools allow for abundant possibilities and outcomes.
“It’s easy these days to think of fusing not just different styles, but sounds/samples from various sources or different parts of the world. I guess if I’m using samples then I try to not just pick what appeals to the ear in isolation, but what really works for the moment or for the track. The creative process, for the recent phase has been to ‘Play’ and that really meant to take things lightly, apply a hands on approach to pretty much all of the layers and parts in a piece of music, to hit record and see what happened,” she explained.
There is no such stance behind Sandunes, she said. “But if there was something I’m reaching for it would be to achieve a more seamless sort of oneness with the music in the creation phase, so that it translates that way to those who listen,” added she.
Following her last EP ‘Unfinished’ in December 2015, Sandunes’s latest album ‘Downstream’ is the music she has been working on for the better part of 2016 and it was released worldwide on 27 September 2016.
The nine-track LP features her analogue approach to the creation of sound, along with several resuscitated aspects of her musicianship. She thinks the rate at which one tires of their own work can be pretty tiring in itself!
“Recording Downstream was like the realization of ease, pleasure, and flow that should be associated with music making as a process. Downstream was a lot of fun when it was happening, but it’s a bit stale to me now! Perhaps a good summary would be that it was a huge learning and it was a new phase of boldness for me, both personally and musically,” she said while talking about it.
She has also collaborated with Jivraj Singh who is a recording and touring beat-poet, producer and visual artist; also known as ‘hottest drummers on the planet’. “My collaboration with Jivraj Singh on Perfectiming was possibly the factor that most informed my approach for Downstream. I can’t wait to get back into a writing phase with him and to rebuild a new Perfectiming world and set,” meant Sanaya while talking about the collaboration.
When it comes to music influences she said, she has been listening to a lot of old jazz from the 1920s over the last couple of weeks. Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong have been her favourites. “Komorebi, Nicholson and Parekh & Singh are partial favourites and I’m also stoked to check out RBMA alum, Oceantied’s next EP – Ketan is an amazing producer. Kumail’s sound has taken a new direction and he has an EP in the pipes too that’s going to be huge. So, there are loads going on locally that’s really worth checking out,” added Sanaya.
Sanaya believes that there has been a huge upward trajectory over the course of the last few years and what is exciting is the rate at which the producers of music and not just the consumers are increasing.
She said, “In an ideal world, everyone should start with music theory, rudiments, and the basic understanding of the fundamentals of composition before diving into production.” As more and more people are getting involved with different aspects of music, music management, and music marketing, this independent music outlook is at its peak, that what she believes.
“However, there’s truly no right and wrong way to engage with music and sound-creation. Tools like Ableton live are huge enablers that often push people to develop their own musical knowledge and understanding,” added she.
Sandunes has performed across the country and internationally, though she has a fondness for The Humming Tree, Bengaluru. As their attention to detail, their keenness to preserve the authenticity of music, and their willingness to do what it takes to make a great gig – night after night, is praiseworthy according to her.
“The most exciting spot I ever played at was on a football field in the middle of a magnificent valley in Telluride, Colorado. It is totally different world when I am playing abroad. In the same way that the food, street culture and language are different, the music consumption culture also feels distinctly different from my point of view,” declared Sanaya.
Last but not the least; when we asked her upcoming projects apart from touring, she said that she is associated with ‘Wade’, which is an animated film that just successfully reached its crowd-funding target. “I’m looking forward to approaching sound design and scoring with some fresh perspective,” added she.
