Firing up the Bandook

Talha Dar of SomeWhatSuper talks about the band’s latest track ‘Anday Wala Burger’

KARACHI:

Up until recently, musician Rohail Hyatt had been flirting with the idea of incorporating every day, organic sounds in his musical experiments. His project, unfortunately, never saw the light of day. However, a couple of youngsters from Lahore – who call themselves SomeWhatSuper – seem to have taken a leaf from Rohail’s book, albeit unknowingly. They have undertaken the same concept in a rather quirky manner. Riding high on the success of their first single Bandook, SomeWhatSuper have recently released another track, Anday Wala Burger.

In a conversation with The Express Tribune, one half of the group, Talha Dar, spoke about the idea behind their latest single and how the duo hopes to establish a desi, electronic dance music (EDM) culture across the country. According to him, EDM tracks are primarily instrumental – a trend yet to take off in Pakistan. That’s what triggered Talha and his fellow band-member Feroze to include vocals to their song. “What Feroze (Faisal) and I used to do as producers was to download viral videos and play around with their vocals to compose tracks,” he explained. “Somehow, working on Anday Wala Burger turned out really well and so, we decided to go ahead with it.” Talha joked about how SomeWhatSuper had also recorded a similar single featuring the voice of Ayesha Sana – the infamous celebrity from the ‘Aur bright karein’ video.





Although EDM as a genre is still finding its feet in Pakistan, Talha begs to differ. He mentioned how both he and Feroze had been performing regularly for the last five to six years, prior to the formation of the band. “When we first began making music of this kind, we had our apprehensions. We were unsure whether people would listen to our music, as opposed to more conventional songs,” admitted Talha. “But the response we received from not just Pakistan but India, America and Australia was overwhelming!”

Considered to be one of the breakthrough Pakistani music acts of the internet era, Talha is quick to acknowledge music platform Patari’s contribution to his band’s success. Other local electronic music producers generally opt for bigger portals like Soundcloud, which Talha believes may be due to the different dynamics and nature of their content, as well as the portal’s international reach. “SomeWhatSuper’s vision was to fuse EDM with Urdu. And since Patari helped us become relevant with the Pakistani audience, we felt that this would be a step in the right direction,” said Talha. In fact, the duo have also experimented with the vocals of international artists like Madonna but failed to achieve a “local feel” with it. “It used to sound really awful! Then we studied the dynamics of EDM and Urdu music in detail and found a mean in between,” he added.



The boys may have perfected the formula for Urdu EDM but this “trial and error” phase seems to have stuck with them - even when they began composing their most popular track, Bandook. The single – based on Punjabi tappay – had been under construction for nearly two years and underwent approximately 24 demos before its final version was achieved. “The first 20 versions sounded completely different while the last four were more similar to the finished product,” shared Talha.

As for what the future holds, Talha has already panned out his plans for more collaborations, including one with a renowned Pakistani band, which he refused to disclose just yet.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2016.

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