B rring. Brring-brring . After the third ring or so, Rijul Victor answers. It’s one in the afternoon. The call has woken him up. We have to reschedule. “My sleep cycle is all screwed up these days,” he tells me once he’s fully awake. He’d gone to sleep in the early hours of the morning, having been busy writing and rehearsing his songs.
Victor, 25, is excited about Modree , his debut album as Corridors, a wide-ranging new electronic solo project he started. The album releases next month.
It is safe to say it’s a drastic shift in the musical sensibility of the Delhi-based musician. Victor used to be the drummer for Colossal Figures, a prog metal band in Delhi. A few years ago, he began experimenting with electronic sounds with the intention of incorporating the elements as soundscapes in the band’s music. In the process, he began writing his own music. Victor says, “With the whole spectrum it offers — the realm of electronic music — it was all too exciting to not get into. It was a struggle of a year or two, which was spent writing some really horrible music.” After getting that out of his system, he began working on what eventually evolved into Modree , over the last year-and-a-half.
In experimental mode
Still trying to find his voice as an electronic composer and producer, Victor chose not to limit his forays to a specific sound. “I’ve tried to deliver to different kinds of palettes in terms of appreciation of electronic music. I’m not sticking to any genre. I’m experimenting.”
The album roams around a fair bit in terms of direction: swivelling from groove-heavy dance compositions and ambient pieces to sleep-tracks downtempo laidback songs and “weird experiments”. “Sonically, all of it together makes sense to me.”
A singular vision
Thematically, the music carries a singular vision with Victor handling everything on his own: from writing and recording parts to the mixing and mastering of the songs. Modree features plenty of collaborations as well. In parts where he felt his skill level on the guitar or the keys wouldn’t quite do justice to the music, Victor would ask his friends to play. Then there’s the singing: “I can’t sing to save my life. It’s the one thing I can’t do at all.” So he has a range of different vocalists on the album, including Tarana Marwah from Komorebi, Nisa Shetty, and Hansita Bhamri.
EDM is a clear departure from Victor’s past life as a drummer. “Playing the drums in a band, I’m channeling the rhythmic side of it. My bandmates are writing the music; I’m writing the drum parts. Here, I’m writing everything. I have complete freedom… the liberty to make my own music and melodies. I had to find myself as a musician. This is what I make as a person; it’s what comes out of my brain.” He still listens to metal from time to time, but there’s been a radical shift in the way he looks at music nowadays. “I think the shift has happened where I feel more at home, more comfortable, with electronic music. It’s where the future of new sounds is heading, with limitless possibilities.” But it goes beyond that.
Victor tells me how this transformation is not only in the way he approaches music, but who he is. He’s gone through a major change over the past year. He’s still reeling from the death of Govind Marodia, the vocalist of Colossal Figures and a very close friend, in a car accident last year.
Dedicated to a friend
The title of his new album, Modree , is inspired by him. “It’s what I used to call Govind. This album is dedicated to my lost friend.” He says, “I’ve changed as a person entirely. I wouldn’t give a s**t about anything earlier; I was always cocky. I’d never lost anybody that close to me. Never a best friend. It was the saddest moment of my life. We were both very emotional people; we’d meet every day and it was just too intense, too personal, for both of us. And now, I’m far too vulnerable to emotion. I’ve become very sensitive. His absence kills me.” He has tried to project that emotion into Modree.
Colossal Figures still exists, and the remaining band members are interested in playing the old material and maybe a new song live. However, Victor isn’t as invested in it as before. It doesn’t quite feel right to him. He doesn’t want to get as emotionally connected with the idea now.
He’s a little disillusioned with the live music scene, a little angry. But more than that, Victor is excited about the future. He is pleased with his work on Modree , and is contemplating putting eight songs on the final album or 10 (at the time of writing). He says a tour is in its early stages, and the live setup will comprise him, Saksham Gupta, the guitarist of Colossal Figures , and a singer he hasn’t chosen yet.
There’s a heavy sense of pragmatism, of level-headed focus and clarity of vision as Victor speaks of his decision to move away from metal to a slightly more accessible space as an artist. He talks of a life lived spending loads of money buying gear, booking rehearsal spaces and recording, as part of a metal band, and then never quite getting any returns.
Making the right choices
“You get home after a gig and you have like Rs. 1,000 in your wallet. I’m growing old, I have to think about the money factor, especially if I’m putting my foot down and deciding I only want to earn money through music. I’m trying to make the right choices. I don’t want to sell out or anything; I’m not compromising or following any ‘regime’. I just sit down and write music.”
The author is a freelance writer
Listen to tracks from Modree at soundcloud.com/ corridorsofficial
Victor has handled everything from writing and recording parts to mixing and mastering the songs
