A raspy, textured voice, a haunting number backed by some electrifying guitar riffs, powerful drumming and rhythmic keys — all of it sum up vocalist Shrestha Das’s latest brooding number Ghum that dropped recently. The song also features drummer Gaurab Chatterjee aka Gaboo, Hiten Mukherjee on guitars and Sudipto Paul on keys. “I loved working on the track. I love the composition and the thought put into it. It was great to ideate and create the arrangement for the song with Sudipto and Shrestha and it was really nice to play the drums with it. I have worked with some of my favourite people from the city for this song,” said Gaurab Chatterjee from Lakkhichhara. A t2 chat with Shrestha...

Why the title? What’s the concept behind the song?

The song was written during the lockdown. I have always had a keen eye for details of whatever is happening around me. As a person, I can’t rest well when we as a human race go through such adverse times. Personally, I have lost a lot in my journey. This song is an ode to those times when panic, anxiety and helplessness surrounded me. Through the course of the song, you can understand that the lyrics have been written from the point of view of a body which is being cremated. I thought what if the body could still feel? What would it think? That’s from where the lines come.

How was your experience recording it?

We recorded the scratch and that too was an experience. As this song has a huge number of vocal layers and harmonies, we took our own sweet time to design the vocals. Gabooda and Sudiptoda perceived it as a very vocal-heavy song and I thought it must have really guttral drums and sonically enriched keyboards and a guitar solo. I envisioned the song, starting with a drum solo and whispers as if there’s a lot of sound inside your head and you want a way of stopping it. Right then the first chorus starts... which stops the sounds and depicts the void that’s on the other side of life.

For the guitar solo, we’d given Hiten a basic idea of the space that he could use, the exact thing that the song spoke about and the soundscape that I wanted to create during the bridge which feels like freedom, but a bloody and painful one. He did exactly that. Srirup, who mixed and mastered the song, thought it through very well. He wanted to do less and in that course, create more. I can rightly say that everyone worked for the love of music and that’s what makes it work. We all were already really good friends but the song has brought us even closer.

Are you planning to add a music video to it?

I have planned a really eerie music video where I plan to make these amazingly talented and beautiful musicians go out of their comfort zones and really act. I have always been a huge film enthusiast and have studied film, so I exactly know what I want to do with the video. I plan to give it a Western horror vibe, the style of American horror films during the 1970s-1980s. I am gathering a team for the video. We’ll soon start the workshop.

What inspired you to make music?

I created my first tune when I was six years old. I remember it. I was in front of the sea, I had gone on a trip with my parents. It was 2004 when the tsunami hit the world. I could feel the sea wasn’t so calm. I think nature has inspired me. I think life has inspired me. My training, education and the way I look at life and everything as an individual, have inspired me to make music. I intend to speak the language that music is and I want to do it right. I could never love anyone or anything more than music.