Here is Beautiful has the most precious story to it . I wrote it as a gift for my boyfriend for our 5 year anniversary . I was chatting with Sunidhi at the time and I thought it would make a mighty impressive gift to have Sunidhi also sing on this gift song . So I sent her the song . She loved it . I told her how I didn ’ t want to release it , that it was just a gift and asked her if she ’ d be willing to sing it . After a little back and forth she was on board and we ended up recording it at my place . I gifted my boyfriend the song . He loved it and that was that . A few months later when I was discussing the idea of a potential album is when I felt like Here Is Beautiful had a place on the album . So I broached the idea of the song with Sunidhi again . She agreed to sing it with me for the album . We even ended up shooting a video for it !
Uncool is the oldest song on the album . I wrote it when I stayed alone in a New York Apartment for a month in 2017 . Clearly , long distance relationships aren ’ t a thing I ’ ll be good at . This song is testimo-ny to that . Uncool was written after a fight over text messages with my boyfriend . I felt neglected and I cried so much , that I felt unlike myself - I felt uncool . This is the basic premise of the song - “ Your loves got me feeling insane , Your loves got me feeling like a fool , Your loves got me feeling de-ranged , Your loves got me feeling uncool .” I am not this person anymore , but I love how this song reminds me of the girl I used to be .
The last track is titled Sora , after my friend Sora . She died suddenly in a car accident and I wrote this song the day I heard she wasn ’ t with us anymore . I ’ ve never written a song as an ode before . But with Sora I shared one of the most special relationships . She was Japanese . As a result she spoke very little English . Our communication was limited . But she taught me how one can be patient , gentle and loving . We met only a handful of times when I traveled to Japan , but she left a lasting impression on me . The lyric at the end of the song “ You should know your jacket , Still hangs in my closet , I still dont fit in it , But as long as I got it ..” - refers to a denim jacket lined with pearls which Sora gave me to keep me warm one night . It didn ’ t fit me then , it doesn ’ t fit me now .
Talk to us about the production of this album and the duration
There ’ s two producers on this album . Karan Pandav has produced Sora and the rest of the songs have been produced by Sunny M . R .
I met Karan at Berklee in 2019 . He was a full time student at Berklee then . We ended up talking a lot in the time that I was there and I knew we had to work together at some point . Karan ’ s primary in-strument is the Guitar and we hear that so evidently in the production of Sora . The entire production is electric guitar and vocals based . I love how he understood the sentiment behind the song and gave it the space and richness by keeping it minimal and ambient . Annette Philip , has added all the lush harmonies on the track single handedly . She used the vocoder for a lot of the parts she designed for this song .
As for the rest of the music on this album , Sunny was the captain of the ship . When I went to him with the proposal of putting an album out and having him produce the music , he said we should do it like how people do in the west . So we booked Island City Studios for three full days . We got Zafar Ansari and Roland Fernandes who play piano and guitar respectively , for those three days as ses-sion musicians . They had no idea what we were going to work on . I went with 10 songs to that ses-sion and we ended up working on 8 out of them . I literally auditioned my songs for the album . We would work on whatever vibed with everyone in the room . In those three days we got a lot of live recordings done . Piano , Electric guitars , Bass , Drums on As Far As We Get , and even material for Side B . I completed writing a lot of songs and recorded demo vocals .
Sunny then took over a month to compile all ideas we had laid down , giving the songs a rough struc-ture and seeing where they stand . He added production elements and then called us all in again for a listening . The songs sounded almost ready when he played it to us then . But we did 2 full days of Synth sessions on the songs . We worked out of Sunny ’ s studio with his huge collection of synths - Zafar ’ s playground for creating beautiful riffs and soundscapes !
The last stage of the production was recording vocals . Sunny acquainted me with his recording set up and I would go everyday and record myself on the songs . There was no pressure of a final re-cording . I recorded some songs 3 or 4 times while some I recorded just once . But being in that room alone gave me the space to experiment at leisure . I would put down ideas and re work them . Exactly what Sunny intended . Sunny probably knew that if I had time , resources and the liberty to experi-ment I would come up with interesting things .
We have the Side A of this album which is 18mins in duration and another Side which is probably as long or longer coming in a few months . I don ’ t find any challenges in the making of this album ; just sheer joy !
Talk to us about your songwriting process . Where do you draw inspiration from ?
I have to feel strongly about whatever I ’ m writing about . The song idea being juicy is key . So far I ’ ve only been able to write about real life instances . The songs on Side A are a reflection of a state of mind , an incident , a mood , a feeling - all of which I ’ ve experienced . For me , the lyric comes first . Writing a melody to a lyric comes naturally to me - whether the lyric is completely fleshed out or just an idea .
If I am moved by something , I write an essay on it . As many pages as I can write . Maybe a few days of writing with no pressure of having to convert it to a song . Just words , phrases or sentences , some-times incomplete sentences , but basically everything I want to express about it . If I ’ m still invested in the idea after writing about it , I ’ ll read it over and over again . Then comes what I want to say , and reaching the point of the song in the chorus , if there is a chorus at all . It ’ s interesting how sometimes I end up writing a verse which doesn ’ t feel like the start of the song , but more like the middle of the song . Then I ’ ll rework the structure . It helps to keep writing and re-writing and re-re-writing . If I hit a wall , I turn to my songwriting books and do some reading , so I can find another place to pick it up from .
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