A journey through soundscapes and time
Music composer Aseem Trivedi talks to us about his six-year-long journey as a musician, before bagging his first ever mainstream project, working alongside artistes such as Raftaar, Benny Dayal and Shreya Ghosal, and how those experiences helped him achieve his dream of becoming a composer.
“The biggest advantage of being a music composer in India is that you don’t get categorised in a particular genre,” says the 24-year-old music composer Aseem Trivedi, whose journey as a composer began recently, with the recently released OTT series, JL 50. But the ”idea to be a full time musician” came to him, when he decided to leave his home town, Kanpur, to pursue college in Mumbai, six years ago, in 2014.
“ I think I was 18 when I came to Mumbai to pursue college. My family has all lawyers and doctors, so they( his parents) just wanted me to pursue education and get a degree. I moved to Mumbai, because I just had to pursue music as a profession and I always dreamt of composing for movies and shows,” he says. The recent series, a sci-fi show starring Pankaj Kapur, Abhay Deol and Piyush Mishra was a perfect opportunity, for “someone” like Trivedi, because the show gave him “ample of space” to experiment.
“Theres a song like Jungle Ki Raaton Mein and, then theres a song like Now I am Here. They just belong in two different time zones!” he says. That makes sense, since the show oscillates between 1984 and 2019. “It was amazing to just think about the possible soundscapes around such a script. For someone like me it was perfect, because there were so many options. Plus I was really fortunate to work with people like Piyush Mishra and just be able to learn so much from him,” he adds.
Before JL50, Trivedi, for six years was a part of a variety of bands, part of a reality show and was opening for acts such as Raftaar, Benny Dayal and last year he was on tour with Bollywood singer, Shreya Ghoshal. “All of these experiences, working with different kind of musicians, have helped me understand what music is all about. It might be cliched thing to say, I know. [But,]The musical sensibilities are so varied, that I really consider myself fortunate to have worked with them and all of these experiences have helped me reach where I am today,” he says.
The ultimate dream, however still remains composing for a film. “I have grown up listen to Bollywood songs, and being fascinated by them. Of course I’d love to compose for a film, one day!” he says.
But, that doesn’t mean that he will either stop creating music in the “indie” space. “As an artist you need to express and say what you want to say. So the indie space is to let that inner artist inside of you, out. You make your sound in the indie space,” he signs off.
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