Ashwin Mandoth unveils 'Neenillade', a Kannada rock ballad capturing the loud echoes of absence

Absence is never truly quiet, is it? Outside, it’s silent — an empty chair, an unanswered call. Inside, it’s loud, restless and heavy. That’s what we wanted to capture with Neenillade. We’ve both lived through absences — of people, moments and versions of ourselves we had to let go. We realised grief and longing don’t sit quietly; they scream and pound in your chest. So we didn’t want to write a sad, quiet song about absence. We wanted to write how absence actually feels. For us, the high-energy rock sound is the weight of that absence. The heavy guitars are the restlessness, the driving drums are that heartbeat that won’t calm down and the loud chorus is the thought that keeps echoing — neenillade (without you). We translated the quiet into loud, because that’s the truth of it. The world goes quiet when someone is gone, but your inner world becomes the loudest it has ever been. This song is that inner noise.

It started simply. We met at Vivek’s place, where he writes and produces, planning only to write a few songs together. There was no fixed idea; we jammed, tried minor progressions, hummed softly and looked for common ground. That’s when we found the first piano idea — not exactly the one in the final song, but it set the tone for Neenillade. We developed that feeling over several more sessions. Vivek added raw guitars and humming and I built the arrangement and production around them. It took several meetings before the song took shape. We were never trying to make something random for a hit; we wanted an honest song, not something manufactured. It clicked when the dark piano idea met the raw guitars. We both felt it reflected what we were going through.

For us, it’s the instrumental solo section after the second chorus. Vivek takes the first solo on the guitar. It’s a very gentle ’80s/’90s vibe with a warm tone, with a small shreddy bit in between before it comes back to that gentle feel. And right after that, I take over with the keyboard solo. It’s super steady and very fast! It’s full of energy and gives the song a totally different dimension. While shooting that solo part, we were jumping all over the place, going absolutely mad, even rolling on the floor.

We feel music doesn’t need translation. We ourselves listen to songs in different languages where we don’t understand a single word. But we can feel the music. That feeling is what connects. So our approach to going global is not to chase acceptance. Our job is to make the most honest Kannada song we can, with global-quality production and let that honesty travel. We believe acceptance will follow authenticity.

We are clear that Neenillade is not just one song; it’s the beginning. We already have four to five more songs ready. Some are fully done, while others still need music videos. Each song has its own emotion and story, but our core sound — piano and raw guitars — will stay the same. Our next step is to take this music live. We want people to experience us not only on Spotify or YouTube, but on stage with a full band. We’re planning live shows across Bengaluru and other cities and we want to play at indie festivals. For us, Neenillade is just the introduction. The real journey starts now.