Members of the Delhi-based trio Begum use terms like nihilistic, cutting edge, and cautiously joyful, when asked to describe the band’s signature sound. Their inspirations range from Cambodian singer-songwriter Sinn Sisamouth and Japanese city-pop artiste Taeko Ohnuki to ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh. Yet this eclectic potpourri of emotions seamlessly comes together in their upcoming album, Are You Ok? — a 10-track dreampop soundscape that has been five years in the making.
Go with the flow
Kartik Pillai, Dhruv Bhola, and Karan Singh are already known to fans in the indie circuit for being part of popular band Peter Cat Recording Co. At the core of Begum’s ethos is a stream-of-consciousness style of making music. “It’s almost like a reflex. What would first be just garbled consonants and syllables, would turn into some kind of narrative by our second or 12th listen. We’re just trying to capture those moments of inspiration that come with the first time a song presents itself to us,” Kartik tells us. This unfiltered process makes the songs fluid, ethereal and ruminative, especially tracks such as Meena Lisa, Only If You Care and Ten Years Later.
Begum’s previous album We Are Excited was released in 2016. “We took our time with this one, but it was always inevitable. The songs had been floating around ever since 2015, and it is only now that we felt like we had an album,” he says. Much has happened in the world since. The band’s music too has evolved in these five years. “All our albums are precious to us. But the sound in the new album has evolved to a more refined and splendid place,” Karan adds. With more use of synths, a new bassist and better production, this album has more depth.
Screen tactics
The music video for the song Only If You Care has a unique concept. The video features footage filmed at a specific moment of time on July 7, 2021 by individuals in cities around the world from Bengaluru and Delhi, to Sao Paulo and Paris. Kartik explains, “Directing that video embedded in me this awareness of where I really was and that everywhere on the planet, millions of things were happening all at the same time.” Another music video that we love was for the title track Are You Ok? The video is a collection of snippets from Kartik’s travels. He adds, “I’ve been dealing with a lot of health issues, and the subsequent depression and hopelessness that comes with it. The idea of the video was to put together moments that I had recorded over the years of my travels to remind me that life wasn’t always that bad. Music can be akin to therapy sometimes, for me at least.” Before the full album drops in a month or so, fans can expect another music video and some fun merchandise in the next few weeks.
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