The Music Man

Having produced music for some of the best-known Indian indie artistes, Ayan De has now released an EP of his own compositions.

A little less than five years ago, Ayan De moved from Manipal to Mumbai and started a course in sound engineering. The primary reason was that he just wanted to do something to pass his time. Unlike most of the other people in his course who were in it for the love of it, De says he worked hard on it mostly because he'd gotten into it. The career choice took off for him, however, and ever since, he has produced music for some of the best-known Indian indie musicians today, including Goddess Gagged, Blek, The Riot Peddlers and Siddharth Basrur.

Like many other music producers, De would keep making his own music on the side while working with these bands. "I thought I might as well record stuff, so I would keep making and deleting music," he says, adding, "But this was more from an engineering point of view." The plan was never to actually put out any of this music on an album, but friends finally convinced him not to delete some of it. Five tracks have now found their way to an extended play (EP) titled Scores For Your Background that De released as a free download on the NH7 website earlier this month under the moniker Paralights.

Primarily because these tracks were never supposed to go out of De's house, as he puts it, there isn't a pre-defined theme running through the EP. All of the songs, however, have a similar "spacey" sound, often reminiscent of some sub-genres of ambient music. "I wasn't looking for a particular sound, but we all have preferences and that's the space I come from," explains the 25-year-old. It's electronica, but more the 'easy listening' sort than the type to dance to. "I can't make dance music probably because I can't dance," he says with a laugh. There's little wrong in the five tracks, also perhaps because they're rather different from the music most Indian electronica acts are making today.

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