Maestro’s next project expected to be a travelogue featuring natural sounds and international musicians .
Ever since he announced his departure from Coke Studio, Rohail Hyatt seems to have gone AWOL. Although he continued making sporadic appearances at various speaker sessions and music festivals, even those diminished over time.
“He has achieved so much in the past few years that he could might as well be sunbathing on a personal yacht somewhere in Europe and thinking about the finer bits of life,” his friend and work associate had summed up the reclusive artists’ rockstar lifestyle while we were trying to trace his whereabouts.
Rohail has definitely owned it and with each passing episode of Coke Studio, there seems to be a growing echo for the maestro to return to the fold again. But it appears as if Rohail’s fans may have to wait longer for his Coke Studio comeback, as the music producer has another project at the top of his agenda.
Multiple sources confirmed it to The Express Tribune that Rohail will be producing a music show for Sprite. The project will be miles apart from Coke Studio. This time around the maestro is expected to come out of the confined studio environment and is aiming to do something more organic and visually captivating.
“The project is going to be filmed like a travelogue where the sounds of different parts of Pakistan are going to be captured and incorporated into a song,” says a source close to the producer.
The yet untitled project is expected to be filmed in an episodic format with each episode ending with a music video of an original sound track, created through the course of the show. Some sources also revealed that the format may change overtime because the show is in its preliminary stages.
“The nature of the show is not yet decided and the format may be tweaked over time,” says a musician, who is aware of the project. Sprite is coming up with a very huge campaign and Rohail’s project is a part of that.”
Some of the destinations that Rohail will visit along with his production crew include Hunza Lake, upper Punjab and interior Sindh. The team is also expected to make use of sounds created by objects in different soundscapes. They already started collecting easily available sounds such as that of kids dodging a football, knives being sharpened and the juggling of maalish bottles. Even a few boxing rings were hired for this project.
During his six seasons as the producer of Coke Studio, Rohail continued working with his own select group of musicians, such as Gumby, Asad Ahmed , Omran Shafique , Mannu and Babar Khanna to name a few. However, the chances of Rohail reverting to his tried-and-tested house band members remain low with his new project set to feature an all international set of musicians.
“The project only features international musicians,” confirmed a source associated with the project. “It is unlikely that his [Rohail’s] latest [project] will see any mainstream or renowned musicians taking part,” says a veteran musician who has worked very closely with Rohail.
“I think he might just continue working with the international musicians from season six (of Coke Studio),” added the musician.
If the project sees the light of the day then it will be the first time that any Pakistani musician would be aiming for an all organic approach on a mainstream music show. Internationally, bands, such as the Foo Fighters and others, have produced successful albums based on ambient sounds and only time will tell if Rohail’s musical journey through Pakistan will have a huge impact.
At the same time, we can’t rule out Rohail’s return to Coke Studio as he has already committed in an interview with BBC that he would like to produce one more season of the show. Maybe Strings will be given a third chance next year so that Rohail can come back and wrap Coke Studio once and for all in season 10?
Representatives of the Coca Cola company were not available for comment.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2015.
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