All hail original music

LAHORE: For years, shows like Coke Studio and Nescafe Basement have served as reminders of the better days of the Pakistani music industry, packaging the old in shiny new wrapping. But dearth of quality new music continues to be a seminal issue for the industry’s future — a gap that Walnut Media’s latest project, the Walnut Sessions, aims to fill. 

The studio burst into the limelight back in 2011, when it conducted Pakistan’s first live web-casting of an open mic night on a global scale. This was followed by Pakistan Superstar, a one of a kind, online musical reality show with its second installment due this Ramazan. The Walnut Sessions takes a leaf out of the same book, hoping to launch new talent into the market. The house band serving as mentors for the newcomers include Kami Paul, Farhan Ali, Rufus Shahzad and Amir Ajmal.



During the first quarter of the show — which kicks off after Ramazan — the Walnut team plans on making 18 original videos comprising five English and 13 Urdu pieces. “The artists will be provided with everything from wardrobe, composers, lyricists, studio time and anything else they require, free of charge,” says Adnan Butt, CEO of Walnut Studios and the executive producer of the Sessions. The team insists on not taking any commercial support from external brands lest it deter their cause.

The desired theme of the music will be ethnic, incorporating classical instruments like the sitar, rainmakers, duff, morphiz, harmonium, congas and accordion in the compositions. Kanza Munir, one of the artists to be featured in the Sessions has been working with the team for the last four years. “We used to do song covers before but this experience has been so much more enriching for me as an artist,” she said in an exclusive interview with The Express Tribune. “I have two songs this quarter. One of them was written and composed by me and the other by Sami Khan. I learnt quite a lot as it was the first time I saw a song being produced right in front of me.”



According to Butt, many television channels have been contacting him for permission to broadcast the Sessions but that is not his top priority right now. “We want to focus on digital and are currently distributing our content on 130 networks worldwide, including YouTube and Spotify,” he said. Butt is also in talks with the former to establish a portal focusing solely on Pakistani content once the website is unblocked in the country.

Prior to this, Butt was involved with Coke Studio which he left soon after season two. “We had to part ways because I wanted to promote fresh talent and that was not on their agenda,” he shared. “I look forward to multiplying the content generation by the Walnut Sessions in the coming years and collaborating with international artists,” Butt added. For now, the Walnut Sessions will release two music videos every weekend for the next 52 weeks starting now.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2015.

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