‘Kahaniya’ by Mumbai’s Folk Masti band almost had us teleported to a relaxed musical evening, by the Himalayan foothills, right where they shot the video. The song is beautifully tied with it’s emotions and made one feel the need to take a pause, to realize the importance of self-love.
Yash Warrier | Founder, BeatCurry
The composition had it’s repetitive rounds of musical chills and the whole music video gave an impactful, calm and a friendly ambience to the listeners. The whole emotion of the music revolves around celebrating one’s journey, life experiences, stories (Kahaniya), past memories we love reminiscing and feeling jovial about, and most of all, loving oneself. The mild phrases on the Piano (by Sachin Guldagde) brought in the element of those hidden stories (Kahaniya) that the protagonist keeps to himself while smiling out loud. The composition has a relaxed, polished and a soothing voice, well portrayed by the lead vocalist, Vipul Panchal. On the whole, aptly done harmonies, chords and phraseology of melody lines called for great highpoints throughout the song.
During the lines:
“Gum Sum Si
Zindagi Ki Kahaniya”
“Kaisa Hai Tu,
Aur Teri Kahaniya”
When the whole band comes together to highlight the beautiful Flat 6 Major7 vibe, it creates a moment of silence, just to gather the right feel all over again to head into the chorus. Special mention for the way how Folk Masti composes interludes – the band bats for unique chords, musical pauses, well structured rhythm patterns and tihais (polyrhythmic structures) in some cases. As the song progressed, the vocal harmonies started getting more lively, fuller and interesting all at the same time.
We feel, Folk Masti is not just about great music, but it also highlights choices, decisions and musicianship qualities. Their minimalistic use of instruments and meaningful approach towards songwriting has been a highlight with their latest release ‘Kahaniya.’ The composition gracefully concludes on a wise note – you could hear the heavy vocal harmonies, colourful chords and balanced rhythm sections leading you to a perfect end.
This was BeatCurry’s review of Kahaniya – Self Love Matters by Folk Masti.
Let’s find out what the band had to share with us about their latest release.
Talking about his initial thoughts, the lead vocalist Vipul Panchal said,
“A song travels from one emotion to another. I’ve had a different approach with all my songs, but when I see the song in its final stage, it makes me feel that it’s touching emotions more than what I had thought. That’s the beauty of music, which is why we say, you can have different interpretations.
I had this thought about little life experiences and stories that we keep happily looking back to, keeping it more like a ‘secret’ within ourselves. I imagined this song to be about a ‘secret’ that the protagonist hasn’t shared with anyone. That was the time I began giving words to this feeling. I started penning down my thoughts and eventually I had something ready before me, waiting to be sung. I began humming the tunes with my guitar and soon enough I had a basic structure ready.”
“There are so many things that we don’t share with people, but we feel happy keeping it to ourselves and thinking about it. The song brings about a long forgotten feeling of just loving yourself for who you are.”
While listening to the song in totality, I was going through a mixed feeling of joy and self-love.”
What was a highpoint for you with Kahaniya? Take us through some of the life experiences that inspired you to write this music.
“I feel ‘Kahaniya’ is a gentle reminder to all the listeners, to take a moment to talk to yourself, to ask yourself about your well-being. We talk to a lot of people about their whereabouts-what they’re up to, how they are, but forget to take time for ourselves.”
“We certainly can’t be dishonest to ourselves. We should take care and keep interacting and motivating ourselves. I feel we must take a moment to appreciate and see how far we have come. The lines, “Kaisa Hai Tu Aur Teri Kahaniya?” is all about that.”
said Vipul.
How would you define Folk Masti’s voice as a band?
“According to me, Independent music is in a way related to Folk music. When you listen to regional or folk music from across the country, they always carry an indepth message, positivity and a vibe.”
“I feel it’s the same with every artform – to not just be a form of entertainment, but also to create awareness. Manoranjan is different. Aatmaranjan is different. Aatmaranjan is what we call ‘Self Entertainment’ or ‘Entertainment for the soul’. Doing it first for yourself, and then for your audience.”
“There’s a story behind every such genre, be it Blues, Indian Classical or Folk. A sense of community, a message and story is always there. This is what we want to do and achieve. Whatever we write, there has to be a good message, and thought behind our work.
I feel musical notes are empty without our expressions and emotions. As humans, we need to put soul and feel into our music, or else it simply remains a few notes. I feel the emotions you put behind a song distinguishes one song from another. Or else it starts sounding the same.
That’s why I feel Folk and Independent music are closely related to each other, because of it’s honesty and it’s purity. We use folk instruments like Maadal, Dholak, etc, to bring the pure folk music colours. There are very few people doing this.”
“I think, Folk music is about your story, my story, everybody’s story. It’s ‘Lok Sangeet.’ It brings communities together with the freedom of thought and expression.”
said Vipul.
Adding to his point and working with Folk Masti, Roshan Aade added,
“As a drummer, I have been through many genres, especially big bands and orchestras, but I was genuinely drawn to the concept of Independent music, especially as that of Vipul’s Folk Masti band – getting to do music the way you envision.”
Coming to a final note, the band collectively added,
“We’re mainly reaching out to more and more people through our music. We want to work on further developing our community, our audience and we are finding newer ways to fund our passion for independent music. Nevertheless, our efforts shall go on and on.
As a band, I feel the entire community has to come together to help, support and grow together. We need the industry support to push fresh voices like ours and help us take the next leap.
Lastly, we’d say that to wake up every single day to write meaningful music is a blessing. A lot of our songwriting has been natural and honest. That’s the honesty that we want to bring through our music.”
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