Bringing folk to the youth

Earthy, traditional notes of Punjabi folk music intoned in a classically trained voice mingle with electronic beats, to create a catchy tune that both stays in your mind, and touches your heart. This is the speciality that Hari and Sukhmani bring into each of their songs. Through appearances in Dewarists, radio shows, as well as their regular single releases, they have brought the heritage of Punjabi folk music into the modern age.

“While the folk tradition is rich and beautiful, it is mostly restricted to rural India in today’s day and age. In the urban set-up, most people just listen to mainstream or English songs. So, this was a way for us to bring the earthy, rustic flavour of folk music back into modern culture,” explains Sukhmani Malik.

The duo met when they were both looking to collaborate and branch out from their own fields of specialty — Hindustani classic for Sukhmani and electronic music for Hari Singh.

“I have a diploma with a specialisation in electronic music, and I had already experimented with non-vocal music. I was looking to try my hand at doing some numbers with vocals, when I met Sukhmani through a mutual friend. It was a natural progression really, and not a calculated move. It all sort of just fell into place,” recalls Hari.

While the two have perfected meshing of their very different genres to create a unique sound, which still manages to retain the focus on the mellifluous folk flavour, there were some teething troubles along the way. “The thing about electronic music is that the beat is always four-by-four. In folk music on the other hand, sometimes you have to drop the beat, sometimes you pick up the pace. It’s easy enough to co-ordinate with these variations when it’s live music, but electronic music is pre-recorded. Hari would often drop the beat at the wrong place, and then we’d have to redo the whole thing. It’s something we still struggle with even now,” laughs Sukhmani.

Having got the hang of incorporating elements of their own respective genres, the duo has gone on to collaborate with artistes from across the board — from israj player Arshad Khan to the Indian jazz band, Earthstage. However, it is the collaboration with the Pakistani rock band, Noori that Hari recalls as one of their most memorable ones. “It took a lot of time to complete the project, since we had to go to Lahore to shoot the video for Yariyaan. Going there, getting to experience the rich culture there, and staying with them for 10 days made it one of the most memorable collaborations that we’ve done,” smiles the
musician.

There’s nothing quite like music to bridge the most unbridgeable gaps, and Hari says that the political implications of working with a Pakistani band never even struck him. “We met in the US, when we shared the stage at an event, and we thought it would be fun to collaborate. The political side to it didn’t really enter our minds. They could have been from anywhere in the world. The main thing is that they’re an amazing bunch of musicians,” he asserts.

Though the duo has taken their time to bring out singles in the past, they have resolved to release tracks much more frequently and already have several in the works. “We’ve already come up with three singles this year alone — Promises, Chann and Jhanjar. And we plan to release new music every other month from now,” Hari grins.