Days of Isolation: The Nirvana From Epidemic Condemnation

While the majority of the world was under the wrath of the unfamiliar pandemic, locked inside the four walls, the bitter taste of ‘isolation’ gripped everyone indiscriminately. Unknowingly, the physical restraints had caught hold of our minds as well, forcing us to seep into deep dark dirt of suffering and loneliness. During those times of distress, a song made its way into the Indian music world, summarizing all the intensity of sentiments describing the ‘Days of Isolation’.

Madhulika Gupta | BeatCurry Team

Saakshi Priyadarshini | BeatCurry Team

The Expression of Emotions

This instrumental piece feels like the emotional release of creator Chandresh Kudwa. Majorly known for his exceptional and versatile guitar playing, covers, demos and lessons, with the renowned Mumbai-based drummer, Gino Banks, the duo gifted their audience an energetic and power packed release. The Indian drummer has his distinctive quality of understanding and reciprocating to different styles of music. Starting from the strumming of the guitar, Kudwa makes sure to give his listeners a taste of the rawness and his topnotch caliber of the strings. Every note he hits comes across as his ode to the despondency he might have felt, along with several of us similar to him.

The video is a testament to the conscious attempt at presenting the various color pallets, along with a visual treatment. The black background with the strong white light can easily be the personification of the light at the end of the tunnel, the perfect description of the meaning of the track. This hard rock number coincides with the classical raag Bhairav tonality. The stunning combo of expressionism with the harmonies and rhythm created using electric guitars, bass, and drums rendered a great performance, making it a well composed and presented instrumental piece. Indeed, tracks like these are learning opportunities, avenues and inspirations for young students of music around the world.

Watch ‘Days Of Isolation’ by Chandresh Kudwa and Gino Banks here:

BeatCurry had an exclusive chat with the ace guitarist regarding his latest release where he talked in length about his musical journey, the inspiration behind this particular piece, his upcoming projects, and other significant things.

On being asked about what exactly goes behind coming up with ideas, composing, arranging and making it to the D-Day, Chandresh said,

“The thing with ideas is, I keep documenting them when it excites me and then I eventually move on. I don’t keep listening to it until I feel the need to revisit it. It was around 2019 when I was documenting all the ideas. The lockdown happened and I got a lot of free time during my practice, sessions and lessons. So I opened my files and I found this idea, but on a different scale although I loved the heaviness of the riff. It was more or less, like a pentatonic scale around which I started working. I kept revisiting my ideas, but I wasn’t 100% sure if that’s exactly something that I wanted to convey. It needed something more, a lot more heaviness and a unique identity of its own. I wanted it to be a little darker, because going through those times, I wanted that to get reflected into that song.

As I kept playing around within that scale, I heard a sound in my head that I started writing down, which became the first half of the song. While the song had certain dark phases, I also wanted it to have a hint of positivity and hope. So I worked on reflecting them in my song. Our 14 day recovery journey from the pandemic was right in front of me like a visual canvas and I wanted to communicate those little happenings through this song. The song was more or less, like an episode, or series leading you to a brighter scale change that depicted happiness, more like the pin-holed bright end of the tunnel.

I like all the darkness, positivity, and all the music, along with a tinch of suspense that keeps you excited that something’s yet to happen. So, visualization of the track helped me to kind of put these parts accordingly. So, that’s the song, very organic, very heavy, very visual, very natural, and incorporated techniques that came very naturally. I made use of alternate picking techniques and brought in an Indian Bhairav raag touch. All in all, I think in terms of concept and visualization, and in terms of song and the scales, etc, a lot of fresh things happened in my perspective and I’m very happy about it.”

The entire song was a beautiful exhibition of technical flair when you witness Chandresh’s fervent fingers running through the frets and strings. The alternating finger styling and picking techniques just make the track all the more fiery and interesting. It establishes how authentic an artist Chandresh is. Gino Banks has complimented him beautifully with his thumping beats that alter themselves in great sync with the different emotions of the song.

When quizzed about the way forward with more new such creations, he shared,

“I’d love to collaborate with as many people as I can. You get introduced to your audience and you get to share your music with new listeners. So, collaborations are obviously the way forward. I’ve been lucky enough to have been associated with some really good names. So, it has been great and I’d like to keep collaborating with new players. And whenever I can, I myself would reach out to them. The current update is to get a release in terms of singles because it’s easy to commit to a single. You’re trying to build up on your social media, audience, content, concerts and engagements. So, there is a lot of commitment and engagement going on a daily basis. So, releasing a single is a far more feasible option currently. That way it allows me to explore an ample amount of possibilities with my music.”

Listen to ‘Days Of Isolation’ by Chandresh Kudwa and Gino Banks on Spotify: