As a composer and music producer, I’m an avid consumer of diverse musical genres. For example, after a long day in the studio writing a tension piece for a TV show, I’ll unwind by listening to something completely different like Avishai Cohen (the bassist). As exciting as different genres are, music you listen to in your formative years always as a special place in your heart.
When Amar Kulkarni told me he was finally writing that album with his band, Antaheen, (he’d been talking about for years) I was thrilled. I asked him for a pre-listen, and I knew I had to be a part of it. It ticked all the boxes I look for when producing music – it was good, and it resonated with a part of my soul.
Naturally, as all producers must (when they can!), I made sure I was there for a few of Antaheen’s gigs. A live performance, especially for a rock band, is so special. You can feel the audience’s energy on stage, feed off it, and go to town with things like extended solos. But when it comes to recorded music, listeners are much more discerning – you need to make sure the music is concise. Concise doesn’t necessarily meant short (despite what people say about attention spans these days!), it just means that every single instrument and section must have a reason for being there.
Long Story Short by Antaheen
Being a producer means having to oversee every single aspect of creating a song, or an album, but knowing that it’s the artist’s vision you’re realising. For Antaheen’s album, Long Story Short, it all started with a discussion on influences, musical and otherwise – there were discussions on everything from Alice in Chains to street art in Berlin.
Then it came to conceptualizing each song. We created a blueprint for each song, consisting of instrumentation, vocals, harmonies, and other elements, adding multiple layers but keeping Antaheen at the center of it all. Their guitars, bass, drums, and vocals had to be the stars of the show with everything else supporting what they were doing. You’ll hear grungy acoustic guitars, ambient electric guitar parts, backing vocals, and layered synths in the album.
The blueprint was designed to enhance the uniqueness of each of the seven songs. For example, the song Qafila talks about ‘transformation’ and there’s an entire section that portrays that musically – the struggles of transformation and finally acceptance - that you hear in the outro. The song, Muskurah, has an entire choir (Ensemble Sahanaad) bringing the nuances of the song to life.
You also need to think out of the box to get the sound you want; it’s not only about ‘legit’ instruments. I was missing a percussive element for Muskurah, and I ended up using a clay matka (pot that we use to store water in summers) and my tabla lessons from when I was a child to create the sound the song needed.
I mixed and mastered the album as well. For me, mixing and producing go hand in hand which is why I mix it as I go along. You want to hear your ideas as pristinely as possible when you’re making crucial decisions.
Amar Kulkarni (Vocalist, Guitarist, and primary songwriter), Ashish Kukreja (Drums), and Niraj Pandit (Bass Guitar)- Picture credit: Anuj Joshi
At risk of sounding preachy, as a producer you must have confidence in your musical knowledge and skills. It’s easy to get carried away with all the things you can do in the studio these days. What you can’t do is lose track of the artist. They have to comfortable having you lead the project and know that you can bring their personality to their listeners like no one else can.
Someone asked me the other day, “how do you know when a song is ready?”. Well, truthfully, it’s hard to let go of constantly wanting to ideate, improve every little sound, note, section. But there comes a time when you start taking away bits you’ve added, you start looking at it from the song’s perspective and think, “Is that sonic layer crucial to what the song is trying to say? Am I giving the song space to breathe?”. That’s kind of when you know you’re close to the finish line.
You know you’ve done a great job when you’re still listening to the music months after it’s been released.
(Long Story Short by Antaheen is available to stream here - https://linktr.ee/Antaheenmusic)
Vinay Kaushal is a popular guitarist and music producer. Picture Credit: Anuj Joshi
