MUKESH AMARAN
ALBUM ARTicle:
MANEK D'SILVA
O
ur Artist of the month is Manek D’Silva who has an
interesting past with a cartoon fueled childhood that
has shaped him into a fine artist with a loving sense
of humour. “As for music, my parents made sure the house
was always full of Rock Pop and Country. I sang in a classical
choir, played guitar and made albums with Progressive Rock
band Slain, and write lyrics for folks who need them. And
while I’m taking a break from making or playing music for
now, I adore listening to new sounds!”, he says keeping to the
trend of incredible music shaping some incredible talent.
In 2010, when the band Slain was releasing a full-length album
and when Manek was still in art college, he wanted lend his
skill. “I made it my responsibility to paint the best album
cover ever. Not sure if I reached that goal, but it turned out
good enough that over the years other bands also wanted me to
work with them; I had a ball making album art for acts like the
Raghu Dixit Project, Lagori & Perfect Strangers, and pushing
my skills in the process. Alongside I also developed a deep
fascination for letters and hand-made typography, so I started
making wild custom logos for bands like Bryden-Parth, Best
Kept Secret & Brotha V.”, he says. That’s quite an impressive
set of artists who have used his skillset.
Collaboration with a band like Funktuation is only the most
natural thing that could’ve happened, given the fun and the
quirks that the two sides are equally guilty of boasting. “I
think pretty early on in the discussion with Funktuation we
established how much I love the group’s musical vibe and
performance attitude, and they love my funny designs and
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wild colours, we just had to put those things together. I had
drawn a couple different sketches and directions I thought
we could work with, so soon as they reached Bangalore for a
concert we gathered everyone in a hotel room and talked about
design possibilities till like 2AM. Their music merges Tamil
folk and Bollywood sounds with punchy electronic funk, so
the idea to have a Tamil dancer holding a boombox seemed
too good to pass up. Then after a few weeks of spamming our
Whatsapp group with pictures of jewellery, we had a finished
album cover that blended Tamil traditions, retrofuturistic
tech, funky letters and a badass attitude. The whole process
was very collaborative, with everyone in the band throwing
in fun ideas, but also just letting me run wild with the humour
and styles that I enjoy.” The whole process that they have gone
through, although hectic, has yielded one of the best artworks
in recent times that carefully but accurately represents what
the album is going to be about.
Manek has also picked an interesting field that employs his
skill set. As a comic creator, Manek writes his own web comic
series today titled “Bonabyl”. “I finally launched my own web
comic series Bonabyl (www.bonabyl.com), that satisfied my
urge to draw terrifying monsters and cool fights and weepy
emotional scenes. Classic Manek stuff. The journey’s been
great so far, I’ve become a much better artist and writer from
making Bonabyl, and I’m elated that the first volume is being
printed and will be available as a book soon!”
We wish to see more of Manek D’Silve and we sure know that
we will be.