BENGALURU: Treble Puns’ new single may just give you a sense of deja vu. Called The Pat Earn, the instrumental track has no lyrics but just snatches of spoken word, particularly from The Fantastic Four movie. “It’s the dialogue from the scene where Mr Fantastic is trying to stir up a conversation with Invisible Girl in the library. He says, ‘So you like music. Is that kinda like your thing?’.
And we knew we just had to use it in our song,” says Abhimanyu Roy, who along with Sohini Bhattacharya forms the two-piece outfit. Between the two of them, and with some help from computers and loopers, the duo has about 4-5 instruments playing simultaneously in this song. “We try to exercise a certain sense of ‘word economy’ in our music. We like to give our listeners an idea of what we mean without being extremely prescriptive about what to make of the song. It’s like we’re saying, ‘Hey, meet us halfway, tell us what you interpret’,” continues Roy.
Given the name of the band, it’s no surprise that their track name, The Pat Earn, also carries a small twist to it. “This song is typical of the loopy way in which we tend to make music. The loops create patterns but it isn’t always easy to spot. It’s almost a challenge for listeners to spot them and if you get it right, you earn a pat,” says Bhattacharya, quickly adding, “And that’s another Treble Pun.”
Over three minutes, the song transitions twice, with each segment containing a couple of complex rhythm structures where the acoustic guitars and drums fight with each other to take control of the listener’s senses. The bass-lines and keys add further layers and melodies. “What we loved doing with this song is trying to hold on to the sound of one instrument from start to finish. Try it for yourself! It’s super hard to do,” says Roy.
The band was formed in 2018 and soon after, both Roy and Bhattacharya quit their corporate jobs (marketing and relationship management, respectively) to pursue music full-time. In 2020, they released their first album, Sounds Like Treble. Now, besides making music (where Roy handles guitar and composing, and Bhattacharya is the drummer and arranger) they also offer sonic branding services to small and medium businesses. Speaking of future projects, Roy says, “We are primarily musicians as opposed to being singer-songwriters. So sound is mostly what we’re obsessed with. We will probably record a song with proper singing soon enough but so far, it has just been spoken word.”