BENGALURU: The past can have a huge impact on someone’s life in the present. Ask Saravana Gowtham, whose new EP is all about reminiscing the past just before evolving and moving to a different phase of life. Produced under his solo project called Thaagam, Look Back One Last Time is a five-track guitar instrumental EP with five different emotions in each song. “I like to reflect on my past and see how much I’ve evolved as a person, as a musician. Thinking about the past is something very comforting for me, even though there are some regrets but still there are other emotions too,” says Bengaluru- based Gowtham. The tracks explore a range of feelings.
Across The Echo is about the grass being greener on the other side; Endless Moments looks at the yearning for some moments to be longer; Emotional Color is about how anger kills; May Be explores how some things in life could have been different; and For This Reason brings in some positivity as it focuses on the ever-present ray of hope, even in situations that seem dismal.
While the guitar is the most striking sound one would hear in these tracks, the EP also features drums, strings and piano, which were all programmed by Gowtham, who besides being a freelance musician, is also the founder of WhiteFret School of Music. The idea for this EP came to him during the middle of last year, when he was recording his second single A Distant Wave. “I always get a small idea for a song when I sit and noodle on the guitar for some time. But the real writing process starts once when I start developing.
To write a track from scratch to finish it takes around 2 or 3 weeks, including breaks,” he says, explaining his process. Writing instrumental music is no different from writing a song with vocals. “The idea is the same. Create something that people can experience. Challenges are the same as the challenges that come during producing a song with vocals, conveying the emotions. Sometimes things fall into place, sometimes it takes time,” adds the 26-year-old. Besides the solo project, Gowtham also plays the guitar for rock band The Sahej Project, and plays bass for melodic metal band Verses and death metal band Prime Rage.
While he has previously come out with music under his name too, the idea of a solo instrumental project seemed appealing. “Making music under my name was nice, but since I play with different bands and make different kinds of music, I gave my project its own name to give it a unique recognition,” he says of Thagaam, which means ‘thirst’ in his mother tongue, Tamil. But why only instrumental music? “For me making an instrumental piece is much easier. Since the time I started making music by myself, I really liked the fact that a song without vocals can also convey emotions like a song with vocals do,” he says.