As a bright-eyed 13-year-old, Kamakshi Khanna got the chance to perform at venues in India and Austria for a special collaboration between Pandit Ravi Shankar and Gerald Wirth, a conductor, composer and choir teacher. It was a choir of 28 singers each from the two countries, and she was a part of the Mozart Choir of India at the time. “I loved that experience,” she says. “It gave my life so much meaning; I couldn’t believe it.” She had no idea then whether she wanted to make music her career or not, but she was nevertheless sure it was a feeling she didn’t want to let go of. As it turns out, she never did.
Eschewing genres
Khanna, now 23, has recently released her second album, Cakewalk , the follow up to her 2014 EP, Much Mellow . The Delhi-based singer-songwriter chooses to steer clear of any genre restrictions on Cakewalk , instead presenting a journey through different eras of sound. She draws from the pop ballads of the ’80s and ’90s, as well as soul and R&B and a light sprinkling of electronica through the length of the album, with her background in choral singing — she’s been part of several choirs over the years — playing a major role as well. “Initially,” she says, “all the songs on the album were supposed to be singles. That’s what I had in my head, since each song was in a completely different space,” says Khanna adding that she always thought of that. “That I don’t have a defined sound or just the one genre to stick to. But I realised that as long as the music gets the point across, it doesn’t matter. I don’t go listening to music for its genre; I listen to something for the song that it is. That’s what I wanted to do.”
Cakewalk is a confident, self-assured release, with Khanna very much aware of her strengths as a singer and composer, highlighting the voice and the harmonies. There’s a pop sensibility running through the tracks, but it’s never unnecessarily showy. Instead, it lures listeners through solid arrangements and a restrained back-and-forth between Khanna and her backing band, as on ‘Don’t Hide’, which seems to bounce constantly between the instrumentation and the voice. Her past release, Much Mellow , she says, had her snatching in the dark at times in terms of arranging the songs with her band, but this time she was far clearer about exactly what she wanted. She worked out the parts with inputs from the rest of her band, which features Pranav Pahwa (guitars), Gautam Menon (drums), Anugrah Pandey (bass), and Nirvan Athreya (keyboards), for some of the songs that she felt demanded the feel of a group of musicians jamming. For others, such as ‘I Tried’, she narrowed the scope and went for a more minimal approach.
Simplicity is key
At their core, the songs on Cakewalk have a welcoming quality to them. “I want my music to be simple, approachable,” she says. Lyrically, too, the songs are mostly self-contained, as Khanna forgoes any excessively elliptical metaphors for the sake of straightforward, relatable themes. From the realisation that all you need is inner strength, after being stuck and getting in your own way while blaming others, as on ‘I’m In My Own Way’, to ‘Moved By Stillness’, which is about feeling one with yourself. She explains, “It’s about the beauty of a still moment — a concert, or writing music, or watching the sunrise early in the morning — which makes you feel great. They’re simple life experiences that everybody can relate to. All the songs are very heartfelt; they come from a very personal space. I don’t know how to write good music without having a personal connect; maybe it’s something I need to learn to do.”
‘Hold Your Horses’, then, is about not fitting in. It draws from her experiences in the music community, as she tells me how she doesn’t quite belong to any predefined bracket. “I don’t really fit in to the ‘scene’. There’s an indie scene, a commercial scene, a jazz scene. I feel like I’m a little of everything; I don’t want to confine myself to just one particular group of musicians in the country.”
Show and tell
The quest for self-improvement, is what compelled her to participate in The Stage on MTV. “I never thought I’d be on a reality TV show; it was never on the cards,” she says. “But it was an amazing experience. I realised there’s so much more to music: performance; reaching out to people; how you present yourself on stage; how to be a public personality. It was a wake-up call from my little bubble of being a musician. It was nice to be in a place where you’re criticised; where you’re not just surrounded by friends and family who compliment everything you do. It was nice to push myself.”
With the knowledge Khanna’s gained, she wants to promote the album as far and wide as possible. The initial response, she says, has been very encouraging, and the intention now is to spend time and effort to make sure enough people hear the music. There are plans to put out music videos as well.
Like her aversion to being pigeon-holed, Khanna doesn’t want to restrict herself to this music. She’s also a part of Delhi-based band River, and next on the horizon is an attempt to make music in Hindi, for which she intends to collaborate with different lyricists. Bollywood is on the cards as well; she’s grown up listening to that music, and is considering a shift to Mumbai at some point. That said, Cakewalk remains her immediate priority for now. “I’m just focusing on the album and my own stuff. If you divide your energy,” she feels, “you can’t really do anything with your full conviction.”
Listen to Cakewalk on soundcloud.com/kamakshi-khanna/sets/cakewalk
