Ananya Sharma’s ‘State of the Art’ talks about a phase every artist goes through. The track portrays the artist’s honesty towards emotions, expression, songwriting, and after all human nature.
Yash Warrier | Founder, BeatCurry
September 2021 saw the release of the Mumbai based Singer-Songwriter & Composer Ananya Sharma’s new single ‘State of the Art’ featuring Jazz Pianist Anurag Naidu and Luca Petracca on strings. Citing artists such as Becca Stevens, Joni Mitchell and Esperanza Spalding as her inspiration, she leads two music collectives, namely ‘Funan and Gang’ and the vocal trio ‘Queendom’ and has been an active part of the indie music scene.
Talking of the release, Ananya’s latest single ‘State of the Art’ is a mixed bag of honest life emotions, making it not an easy task to imagine and bring together such complex songwriting. The song has an off-beat, unpredictable and a linear graph backed with minimal pauses keeping the aura of the song fresh. A record as happening as ‘State Of The Art’, takes a while to set in, eventually making the listeners comfortable with it’s soft storytelling, vocal lines, transitions and minimal instrumentation.
Listen to State of the Art by Ananya Sharma here:
Musically, something about the song that one wouldn’t get a hang of so easily is the time. It’s set in a few different time signatures along with musical accents to which the phrases and the composition is set. The song introduces the listeners to new and, in a way to say, cinematic ambiences through chord voicings and harmonies. The release featured incredible accompanists such as Anurag Naidu on Piano and Luca Petracca on string sections. The trio brought in a variety of chords, colours and interesting passages throughout the song.
The song, like it’s very structure, has an unpredictable, well a cinematic touch to it. It does it’s part of consoling with the listeners who go through similar experiences, making them realize that ‘it’s alright’, to eventually move on. Having said that, ‘State of the Art’ is not an easy listening experience, the song requires a few sessions until you get comfortable with all the nuances of the song. Three things that stood out for us the most was it’s songwriting, accompaniment and phrasing, the changing time signature of the track, and lastly the honesty behind such expressions. The song leaves the listeners on a hopeful note.
Ananya Sharma also runs a contribution campaign on the digital platform SkillBox towards generating the necessary resources to put together more of her original work. Click here to support her work.
Listen to ‘State of the Art’ by Ananya Sharma on Spotify:
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