One look at the artwork of 'Kun' and anybody would feel the pull it has on the viewer. Like a prelude to what the album has in store, the artwork conceived by the lead vocalist, Khalid Ahamed, feels like a meditation about existence. About transience.
The band insists that be it music or artwork, what the listener deduces is what the album becomes.
With Kun, like the previous works of Parvaaz, the band has taken care to convey rooted emotions and personal journeys more than anything else. "The songwriting process is very organic and deeply immersive so when a sound or emotion attached to a song seeks us out, we immediately know it. We make sure not to get too excited and stuff the track with too many elements and techniques and instead go with the flow."
Kun has some very interesting collaborations with multi-instrumentalist Jason Zachariah playing keys and piano on a couple of tracks, Mumbai based musician/producer Sameer Rahat helping in shaping the orchestral sections and electronic drums on one track, Akshay Dabhadkar playing piano on a track and Leslie Charles contributing to the orchestral sections.
With each passing release, the band makes it a point to take the production quality a notch higher which obviously means finding the right technicians from outside the country. "With huge financial costs involved, it becomes imperative that we break down the process of recording into several short stints in the studio."
The album was recorded at Yash Raj Studios and the mixing and mastering has been done overseas by Zorran Mendonsa at Zorran Mendonsa Productions, New Zealand and Kimberly Rosen at Knack Mastering, New Jersey, USA. The whole process took more than two years to finish.
The four members of the band have a shared love for food and music have been together for almost a decade now. As of today, Parvaaz has featured as the cover boys of Rolling Stone Magazine and have toured internationally; Canada twice (2017 and 2019), thanks to the efforts of their North American management team, Purple Patch Inc.
"The reception has been great there. In 2019, we played at one of Canada's biggest music events, Canadian Music Week and Parvaaz's sound and compositions were appreciated by industry folk and the audience, alike. Canada is a beautiful country and the people there are really open to different types of music. We particularly loved the weather there which is very different from Bangalore."
When asked about the struggles as an independent music band in a film-songs driven music industry of India, the boys poured out hope and pragmatism. "It would be great if a larger audience caught onto whats happening in the independent music industry. But as long as we get to do what we do and make ends meet, it seems like a fair bargain."
Parvaaz is among the few brilliant, hardworking bands in India who wants to push the boundaries in terms of the scale of live production. The fans of Parvaaz have exciting things to look forward to: "We want to present the audiences with a brand new live experience and we hope to tour as long and as hard as possible to take Kun to a bigger, wider audience!"
'Parvaaz' in conversation with RANJINI ACHUTHAN