Uncut and Understated – Safar

Safar is a group of multi-genre music producers who want to push the limits of composition and the technical aspects of production in general. These are  typically collaborative initiatives that focus on the intersection of psychology and psychoacoustics with  contemporary music. Despite the fact that the community is united by a shared love of music, producers across all skill levels are welcome.  “The goal is to experiment and think beyond the box while being true to one’s sound. We’re also open to the idea  of collaborating on a multimedia approach by bringing in visual artists.”

What is the inspiration behind the project? 

Hello, I’m Ishan also known as I7HVN. As a result, the impulse arose from a long-standing desire to collaborate and give back to the community. Furthermore, the (X ft. Y) collaboration process was not what I was looking for. Besides that, I’ve always been fascinated by various psycho acoustic illusions and approaches. Finally, I began with a tiny experiment on the subject of psychology, which I turned into a collaborative. That’s how it all began.

On what basis was the project named Epoch of Dali?

The topic of the project was psychological reactivity. To begin the endeavour, we required a source of inspiration. The image ‘The Hand’ (1927) by Salvador Dali served as the inspiration for the entire endeavour. We decided to make this record a tribute to Dali, which is how the name came about.

What ideas are brewing for the next one? Will the theme change or remain constant?

We had a few ideas on the table, some of which were a little too ambitious, and others which involved improvising on the prior one. We decided to try the initial project again, this time with a few more difficulties and some new faces. In terms of the topic, it will be the same experiment, but as I previously stated, the next one will be a little more challenging and larger in terms of the number of artists.

You have set unique marketing plans for Safar’s first VA album, why so?

Yes, the whole team of producers have joined hands in making creative, pitching to blogs, content writing & much more. We tried not to outsource the work so that everyone can learn how to later promote their own brands as well. This was a bit hectic but the output has been amazing till now.

How do you see the logo fit into Safar’s core ideology?

Safar is a community platform, open for all kinds of artists from various ranges of experience in music & visuals, and the logo defines this clearly. Going forward, the color tone of the logo would slowly dissolve into a cooler tone defining the sense of openness & equality in this experimental art community.

Mythopoet (AKA Sai) & Mr. Sandhu (AKA Raunaq) – This thought came into the picture when we were listening to the core team’s discussion around creating the identity for this community, through simplicity that would get easily imprinted in the audience’s mind. We both just went back in time and relooked our journey of how we came into this community. Then we took these bits and pieces to translate it visually from our individual POVs.

What did you visualise in this project to commit yourself?

Inskape – The opportunity of working with like-minded people who take music as seriously as you do was the first thing that came to my mind. Since it gave me the possibility to express myself while working within the boundaries of the concept, I was attracted more to the project. It gave the sense that there would be something uniquely ours. 

Ishan Mukherjee – The project itself was a meeting of creative minds from different ideologies and experiences, both in the field of Art and Music ‘as a form of art’. The thought itself was a driving force to see this through. 

X_P – The thing that was really unique about this project was the interactive and collaborative aspect of it. Being a “bedroom producer” I never really got to know different perspectives in music production. How others perceive music and how different the creative processes are. Interacting with people sharing the same passion legitimized my love for music production in my own mind.

As an artist what value addition do you see in your career by participating in a project like this?

X_P As a musician I feel like it helped me get out a lot of mental barriers I created for myself in my creative process. It gave me a chance to get out of my comfort zone and try new things which I probably wouldn’t do in my own music.  For example, the 2nd experiment which we are conducting has a lot to do with time signatures. Which made me get back to play Tabla (the first instrument that I learned) which I haven’t played in 2 years. These experiments made me learn to have more fun with creating music.

As an artist what value addition do you see in your career by participating in a project like this?

Ishaan Mukherjee – To see such amazing people inspire each other, it keeps me going. Such experiments and collaborations definitely help one grow and learn. 

As an artist what value addition do you see in your career by participating in a project like this?

Ezkape – Met a lot of amazing people and working with them made me understand the process behind a release, taught me how important it is to be organised. Apart from that, this project being a collaborative project did not restrict my creative freedom and even though it is based on one painting, there were endless opportunities for me to experiment and definitely made me better as an Artist.

What has been your non-financial investment in this project?

Ezkape – A lot of time and creativity has been put into this project. All of us wanted this project to be different and even though there were some disagreements, it helped us all become better and make Safar a thing which is unique and worth remembering. 

If there was one thing you could do differently (anything within the project boundary) what would that be and why? 

Subrro – As this was a multi genre, multi step collaboration we had to create samples around the track before going into full composition. While the open ended nature of the project gave rise to such distinctly unique compositions, the initial key and compositions did not have a specific key. However this also gave rise to us using certain creative producer hacks when it came to warping, re-sampling and pitch corrections. Overall the nature of the project enabled us to explore creatively and in a way helped us explore new production hacks too. If we had some standardisation ( time signatures, keys, modes) like we do in our second project for example,  that could also give rise to unique modernists sounds. 

Team Melody Insider thanks the team at Safar for their time, which we are sure is being invested judiciously in the second VA schedule in the near future. This Sure has been the most unique piece on Melody Insider and we wholly support the idea.

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