Assam band Rain in Sahara on creating eco-conscious music
Assamese band Rain in Sahara composes songs that can’t be boxed into any particular genre. They’ve been labelled electro-rock fusion, but they bring so many different genres and musical cultures to the blender that it’s hard to pin down.
The reason for this is that every member of the band comes from a completely different musical background. Founder, rapper, keyboardist and flautist Lain Heringman brings classical training in Baroque, Renaissance and medieval music on the harpsichord and recorder, fused with influences from EDM, political punk rock and hip-hop. Lead vocalist Rain Jong comes from a dark, brooding synth-rock background and has a voice that can make you cry one moment and terrify you the next.
Guitarist Pawan Damai supplies high-energy riffs, while drummer Rui Xing (Majid), a veteran of the Northeast Indian rock scene, anchors the music with steady grooves. Drummer Sunny adds power and precision, and bassist Rajat Bangla provides the foundation that holds it all together. We speak with the band about their new songs and more. Excerpts:
What is eco-conscious music?
Lain: A journalist coined the term after we released our climate change-themed single You Think Our Future Is A Joke, and it stuck! A t its heart, eco-conscious music to us is simply music driven from a place of love. Love for our planet and people all over the world.
What’s funny is that Rain in Sahara was actually born out of an environmental problem! Near one of our apartments, there was what everyone called a drain: black water, sludge, filled with trash. To our horror, we discovered it was actually a river, neglected for decades. That became the subject of our debut single, Black Water, weaving together environmental degradation, corruption, air pollution, and food safety into one song.
How was the band created?
Rain Jong: There were two turning points that eventually became one band.
After studying at the London School of Economics and spending years in the international development sector, Lain Heringman grew increasingly disillusioned by the lack of urgency around the climate crisis. He turned to poetry and political hip-hop, blending those influences with his classical training at Trinity College of Music, London. Rain in Sahara began as a political hip-hop fusion project before evolving into the band it is today.
Meanwhile, Rain Jong had been performing since 2013 with Arogya, a dark synth-rock band from Sikkim that explored pain and difficult social realities. When Rain and Lain met at a festival in Arunachal Pradesh in 2017, they found common ground instantly. The rest of the band—Pawan, Rui, Rajat, and Sunny—were already deeply embedded in the Northeast Indian music scene, drawn to the same intersection of art and purpose.
What have the challenges been in blending activism and music?
Pawan: Finding the balance took us years, and perhaps, honestly, the biggest challenge has been us. Early on, there was so much rage and frustration driving everything, but rage alone doesn’t build community. Learning to channel that energy into something that unites people rather than just venting them, that took us years of live shows and real conversations with audiences to begin to figure out.
Tell us about your new songs.
Rajat: The new music is the most experimental, aggressive, and intentional work we have ever made!
It starts with a trilogy. Venom kicked things off, our most direct and ferocious statement yet about social media and the systems rigged against ordinary people, written from a personal and meta perspective.
Algorithmic Napalm is the second chapter that has been released recently, and it takes things to a much larger global scale through a fired-up nu-metal song responding to a world increasingly defined by globally rigged systems, corruption, and disinformation and misinformation. It envisions the internet as a weapon of mass distraction.
The trilogy then turns inwards with Vanished, a deeper exploration of our individual emotions through all of this. All we’ll say is: imagine an experimental recorder flute over a hardcore breakdown.
Are your songs for commoners or the authority?
Sunny: Both, but in different ways. Our songs are written primarily for ordinary people—the ones living with the consequences of decisions made by others. They are our core audience and motivation.
At the same time, we believe music can reach places that protest signs cannot. So our message remains the same for everyone. If those in authority are listening, our songs are not an attack but an invitation to do better. We’ll always support genuine efforts towards a more sustainable future.
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