Duur – Ankur Tewari & the Ghalat Family (Indie Pop Album)

Songs and musician credits at the end.

Ankur Tewari & The Ghalat Family’s latest offering Duur is like a little gift box containing carefully chosen, personalized goodies. The EP has three songs and is only ten minutes long. I could say these songs are essentially Urdu poems set to folk pop tunes. And boy, these guys do a great job. Their arrangement is minimalist and lyrics very personal. They seemed to have been written with someone or somebody’s someone in mind. Like how Janardhan Jakhar’s friend tells him in Rockstar, great music only can be written if you are in pain (BTW I tried singing one of the songs like a ghazal, a la Mehdi Hasan and quickly stopped the experiment).

The first song Duur is written with lots of empathy about someone who is physically present but absent in every other sense.The arrangement is subtle and complements the meaning of the song very well. The middle song Jahan Tak Humein Yaad Hain is probably about a lover who is hung up on a failed affair. Here, is another entry to that enormous corpus of songs about unrequited love. It could be about an affair which didn’t work as well, but I prefer to see it the other way. The song features Tarana Marwah, the Delhi based pianist and electronic musician who goes by the moniker Komorebi, playing the melodica. And the use of instrument in the song is inspired, it works very well as an accompaniment to Ankur’s voice. Another surprising ingredient is the harpsichord (I think). The last song Bebayaan is where they get a bit experimental and the song is sung in two different registers. It samples the soothing sounds of sea waves and effectively takes you on a walk along a moonlit beach.

The instrumentation (especially presence of the likes of melodica) lends a quirky vibe to the whole album. There were places where the bass made me recall Beatles, especially during their more introspective and experimental phase. This album shows that Indian singer-songwriters have come a long way. And among them; Ankur Tewari has been a trailblazer, always uncompromising, creating music in his own terms – more power to him and his band.  


Musician Credits

Title: Duur
Primary Artist: Ankur Tewari & Ghalat Family
Author: Ankur Tewari
Composer: Ankur Tewari
Arranger: Ankur Tewari
Vocals: Ankur Tewari
Lead Guitar: Gaurav Gupta
Rhythm Guitar: Siddharth Coutto
Drums: Vivaan Kapoor
Bass: Johan Pais

Title: Jahaan Tak Humein Yaad Hai
Primary Artist: Ankur Tewari
Featuring: Komorebi
Author: Ankur Tewari
Composer: Ankur Tewari
Arranger: Ankur Tewari
Vocals: Ankur Tewari
Lead Guitar: Gaurav Gupta
Rhythm Guitar: Siddharth Coutto
Drums: Vivaan Kapoor
Bass: Johan Pais

Title: Bebayaan
Primary Artist: Ankur Tewari
Author: Ankur Tewari
Composer: Tino Francorsi
Arranger: Ankur Tewari
Vocals: Ankur Tewari

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