If there is one good thing that has come out of this lockdown it's that a lot of artists have caught up on their pending projects. From canvas showcases to music albums, the creative types are finding excuses to expand their catalogue. One of them, the rather melodious ones, is the Battle of the Bands season 3 winner Bayaan.
They recently released a cover of Nayyar Noor’s rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's, Aaj Bazaar Mein. The soulful rendition seems like a perfect fit for the times we have been living in over the last few months; calm as the sea breeze and soothing like the pain of separation.
However, this isn't the first time the band has covered Faiz! Back in the day, during one of their performances at the reality show, Bayaan performed Aaj Bazaar Mein with Ali Azmat's powerful track, Naa Re Naa. Everyone loved it! So the band decided to work on a longer version.
"It was so well received that we decided to do a longer version of the same. There were multiple requests from our fans as well to work on Faiz's poetry so this rendition was in the making for quite some time" Bayaan's bassist, Haider Abbas told The Express Tribune. "It is quite different from the BoB version of the song though,” asserted Abbas. “First of all, this is solely Faiz's poetry. We redid the whole version. Asfar, (our vocalist), harmonised the chord and we made it sound a bit more mellow. I worked on the bass while Shahrukh and Keith played the guitars."
Talking about the video, Haider shared how the band decided to something unconventional. "We are always up for trying new things, and this rendition gave us a chance to do just that. For the video, we thought it would be pretty cool if we just kept it minimal. It would do justice to the feel of the song. Since Asfar was in his hometown, in Chitral, the band decided that the song should be shot just there! So, the video was shot during sunrise in Chitral."
He went on to reveal how the lead vocalist's brother helped with the video. "Asfar's brother, Aizaz Hussain - who has been studying Films and TV as well - was of great help! He had the basic equipment and he shot it. The whole idea was for the poem to resonate through the video," he continued. "We also decided to keep the colours very soft and mellow. Given the current situation world over, we just thought it made sense. The rendition, the video, the feel to it - I hope everyone can relate to it."
So, do they plan on working similar projects in the near future? "After looking at the overwhelming response to this one we definitely plan to release more of such music. Asfar is very much into ghazals and poetry; I know he would love it!" Haider quipped," We might even collaborate with other artists and bands even!"
Due to Covid-19 many of the band’s plans were halted like the rest of the music scene. "We had a lot of concerts planned, so many performances. We had released a new album, Suno, as well. There was a launch for the same planned. We were to perform the whole album in that event, but sadly it was just three days after the lockdown was announced, therefore it was cancelled," he shared. "But now, we have been working on a few originals too. These songs will be different from the album we just released. It's still at initial stages but we are working on it."
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