BENGALURU: What better time than the start of a new year to release your brand new music single? Brooklyn-based musician Shilpa Ananth, who pursued her degree at Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru, is releasing her new single – called ‘Align’ – on Thursday on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music, and says the song is close to her heart since it is her first one that fuses English and Malayalam. “I’m beseeching the Universe to tell me when my time will come,” she tells CE.
Produced by Drew Ofthe Drew, with music video directed by Karishma Dev Dube, the song explores an artiste’s performative intentions, both internally and externally. Explains Ananth, “It may be perceived simply as a portrait, but also a presentation of the vulnerabilities, conversations with one’s self, and the constant wrestle between real self and stage self and how all of this finally align, to make an artiste.” Ananth, who was born and brought up in Dubai, released her debut EP in February, 2015, and is currently in the process of writing the songs for her second one, likely to be out this summer.
Titled Reproduction, the 7-track work will feature Indian and Middle Eastern instruments played in a jazz, RnB and funk style. “I am trying to not force out any particular language, but it does look like it’s shaping into a fusion of languages,” says Ananth. Music has always been a part of her life, thanks to her upbringing in a traditional South Indian musical family, which meant Carnatic music, bhajans, and MS Subbulakshmi’s tapes on full blast all day. By the age of three, she had started Carnatic music lessons and eventually developed a love for music that was also shaped by her older brother.
“The two of us would, in turn, blast rock, jazz, and hip-hop music from the bedroom. In between all the regular Bollywood songs, I always felt inspired by AR Rahman sir’s innovative way of fusing styles, and featuring female voices that were rich in the lower alto range,” shares the 29-year-old. It comes as no surprise then that after her degree in media communications and psychology, Ananth went moved to Boston in 2011 to pursue music at Berklee College of Music. She then moved to Brooklyn, where she has been pursuing music professionally for five years.
Ananth is also a part of ROSA, a New York-based, allfemale vocal ensemble that unites singers from three continents. Having performed both solo and as part of an ensemble, she feels solo acts allow her to express her “truest self ”. Currently in India for her tour, she will be performing in Bengaluru on January 11, at The Blue Room, and says she cannot wait to play in the city she considers her second home. “I’m on a complete high and wish I could go back 10 years and let my past self know that it’s going to be the wildest ride,” she says. “But it’s all going to turn out better than I could have ever imagined.”