It is not every day that two of India’s most popular and distinctive indie artists collaborate on a music album. Pune-based singer-songwriter, electronic musician and record producer Ritviz Srivastava aka Ritviz and electronic music producer Udyan Sagar, better-known as Nucleya, have amalgamated their diverse styles and age-experiences to create their new album Baaraat. And their age gap actually worked—the different sensibilities and approaches of 41-year-old Nucleya and 25-year-old Ritviz’s have brought youthful sobriety to the compositions.
It is widely known in the eclectic world of indie music that they had wanted to work together and had often discussed it. Over the last two years, these abstract conversations became a serious collaboration. The album, which will release over an eight-week period with a new song every Friday, tells the story of a union, of different stages of an equation and the different feelings (and quirks) that make a relationship beautiful and complex. The music reveals the intensity of an experimental union and subsequent growth that has created an epic collection with Ritviz’s classical music-tinged stories and Nucleya’s penchant for different sounds.
Recorded in Goa earlier this year, each track is a chapter in a story. The first single ‘Sathi’, which was released on August 13, is about what happens at the beginning of a relationship. And the song, which is the second of 22 releases that the team of two will launch by the end of 2021, is about missing someone integral to your life—perhaps the one that got away, the one in your life or the one you imagine being with in the future.
Best known for his song ‘Udd Gaye’ featured on A.I.B.’s official YouTube channel, Ritviz bagged the 2017 Bacardi House Party Sessions. He was in the Forbes 30 Under 30 India List 2021. Recently, his song ‘Sun Toh’ was used in the Netflix series Mismatched. His album partner Nucleya co-founded the group Bandish Projekt in 1998, which he left in 2007. In 2013, he launched his first album Koocha Monster. Though he is the older of the two, Ritviz is his teacher in many ways. Nucleya says, “I love the way he finds inspiration. He draws it from people and experiences.
I love the manner in which he feels certain emotions to channel into his creative process. His is a beautiful way of approaching life and using it to create art.” Necleya also loves Ritviz’s ability to tell stories and build a narrative-led, immersive experience for listeners. This talent came in handy during their collaboration. “Each track builds on emotions and makes you experience a multitude of feelings,” he explains. Ritviz, on his part, admires the fact that Nucleya is never afraid to experiment and create a new sound. “It is exciting to witness and be a part of such a process,” he says. Further, Nucleya’s “never give up attitude is something I’m in complete awe of and it inspires me to be a hundred times better version of myself,” he exclaims. With a year of surprises planned, it remains to be seen how much of this mutual admiration finds true expression in this alliance of tunes.