Spoken word poet Rochelle D’silva finds herself harbouring a growing disdain for short attention spans. “I refuse to believe we can’t sit present in a moment for 23.52 minutes,” she says. The precise numbers have to do with her newest project, her second EP titled A Thin Veneer of Coping . It is 23 minutes long and D’silva suggests the best way to enjoy it is by listening to as a whole. “The EP was recorded in one go, without practice or preparation. I like challenging myself in the collaborations I have, in the way I perform and the way I create. I like the idea of an album that flows almost seamlessly and doesn’t require reprieve,” she says.
D’silva launches her EP this weekend at an event she promises ‘is unlike any other’. “I want to create a listening booth where the album will be playing and anyone can come put the headphones on and get a bit of a taster. There’s going to be a lot of little things like this. I want to make it a personal experience,” she says.
Evocative voice
A Thin Veneer of Coping is a collection of eight poems – stories from some of the hardest, most vulnerable times in her life. They are a testimonial on how to cope with curveballs in life. “As someone who feels too much and has been cursed with being called too emotional and being told that that isn’t a good thing, I’ve struggled a lot with coping,” she says. This EP thus, is her ‘healing’ – an assurance that things will be fine and that she can take anything that life throws at her and turn it into art.
There’s a quiet strength to D’silva’s poetry, and she has an evocative voice that rises and falls in tandem with her words. She is a known face in the city and curates a monthly poetry open mic event, Words Tell Stories, and runs a slam series called Mumbai Poetry Slam. Last year, she released a book When Home is an Idea . These days, she works as a Community Manager at a new performing art space, The Castiko Space, in Versova.
Rhythm and rhyme
This is her second EP after her debut, Best Apology Face . Both have a musical score (on piano) provided by Meena Shamaly, a music producer and poet based in Melbourne. “He is such a brilliantly intuitive artist and I feel like his music elevates my poetry,” she adds. Music has always been a part of D’silva’s poetry, and helps brings it to life. She has worked with different artists for live performances. “Every artist brings their own voice and their own unique flavour to the performance and so I get to experience the poems differently as well. I like this idea that the same poem can take on so many different forms, it is not bound to one tune or rhythm,” she adds. This EP launch will also be her first performance with band, The Invisible Constellations. The music, she adds, will respond to the moods created by the poems and will be very minimal and ambient.
A Thin Veneer of Coping will launch on August 26, at 6 p.m. at The Castiko Space, 121 Aaram Nagar Part 2, Versova; Entry is free and open to all.
