Darren Fernandes is in Mumbai and making music. Well, he has just started releasing it; his excellent ballad ‘Gabrielite’ is his first one. So many artists make their foray into the indie space with songs like Darren’s; acoustic guitars and attempts to showcase their writing prowess. But many of those many artists end up covering up what is often their best quality with production choices, sonic frills and the like, when all they could have done is left their essence (their writing; the song) untouched with far better results. Well, Darren does exactly that. And the results are, well, so very good.

‘Gabrielite’ uses the trope of having a kooky premise to talk about serious things. So, like all great fables, this song is about a superhero who overthinks everything (like, that’s his superpower) and is trying to open himself up mentally. You, know, that old tale. While that is a neat device to talk about emotional availability and the importance of being in touch with said emotion, it might not have been required because the instrumentation does a brilliant job of conveying it on its own. And this is where Darren’s ideas come up trumps. There’s quite a bit of restraint on this song; there’s acoustic guitars (yes, plural), his vocals (also plural) and a flute. That’s all he uses, and wow does he use them. The guitars spend most of the song weaving different lines together, sometimes additive, sometimes for a sort of counterpoint. His vocals stay very clean and singular in quitter moments and bring in more layers when he wants to dial up the emotion. And the flute! It rules. Moa Edmunds Guevara and Tomas Carrasco should get huge props for playing guitar and flute on this song, and they’re all brought together by Darren Fernandes’ tight song. ‘Gabrielite’ is great on all counts; watch out for this artist.