We’ve all heard/seen that story of a person ‘breaking away’ from something not falling within in his/her forte and instead inching towards the fields which they are the most comfortable in. Some succeed, but then some also face reversals which can be due to a myriad of different reasons. To this cosmos (of such stories), we see another little addition in the form of Mumbai based acoustic, folk, and rock inspired musician, Shubhangi Joshi, who recently released her debut four track EP, Talking Away The Night, on various online platforms (Ok listen and soundcloud). And being primarily a self-taught individual in this field obviously evoked our interest, and hence we took the route of the interview, getting some comprehensive responses in return.

Asked to reflect on her experiences as an independent musician so far, Shubhangi wrote, “I have been composing songs for the past few years, but up till now, my efforts at performing were limited to home recordings and college fests. I always knew I wanted to get into the studio to work professionally on my songs and perform to a wider audience, but somehow I was stuck in that classical Bermuda triangle of undergrad- MBA- Corporate Job. While in my corporate job, I did keep on working on music side by side, but it wasn’t enough. One day I finally decided that it was time for me to kick start my musical efforts onto the next level, so I quite my job and took a break. Thankfully, I have friends and family who’ve always been very supportive of my music.” I have to add here that such an action of hers, which involved giving up a stability-inducing job to take up something as creatively demanding and competitive as music, is certainly daring and laudable.

As goes her songs in her debut EP, we were told that there’s a harmonious balance between the instrumental, and vocal and lyrical elements of the song, so that they make up one unified whole. Moreover, she also stressed persistently on the importance of her songs in carrying an ability to influence the emotions and thinking patterns of the listeners, citing diverse icons as her influences, including Joe Satriani, Norah Jones, Nick Drake, etc. So while the song titled ‘Jazzy little weird number’ is “about a person who has been so heavily involved in rituals, duties, and feverishly preparing for afterlife, that he ends up wasting the very real years,”  ‘Holiday song’ is her “escape/Goa song, talking about taking a break.”

The recording duties for the EP were handled by Studio Fuzz, New Delhi, owned by Arsh Sharma, Srijan Mahajan and Nikhil Malik - some of the veteran names in the independent music circuit. About the experience of recording with these individuals, Shubhangi had to say, “Arsh, Nikhil and Srijan have been great to record with. They were very encouraging and appreciative, and we took a good amount of time working on the EP, to make sure it sounded its best. They created a conducive and open environment for me. Srijan, in fact, offered to change the programmed drums in two of the songs to live drumming, because he felt that he could add to the song in a way that would’ve done far more justice. “

Moreover, Shubhangi even took a step forward, and decided to add a visual dimension to one of the songs, ‘Talking away the night’; the toil for which was done by Sagar Chawla and Jayant Parashar of the Sixth Ocean Project.

With so much being served on the platter from just a single individual in a relatively short span of time, I was naturally very curious to know about her future plans. To this she made us aware, “The plan is to keep making new music on themes I connect with and continue strong on my journey as an independent musician. My immediate plan is to perform live and also I’d love to collaborate with musicians and create something interesting. I also plan to record a full length album around February 2015.” Hoping to reach an even larger audience through various avenues (she even named RSJ here for being one of them), it is hoped that Shubhangi continues to keep the momentum going in the future by churning out new music. 

Stream Talking Away the Night by Shubhangi Joshi below: