Miti Adhikari was behind the sound of some of the greatest acts ever. Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, The Strokes, Coldplay, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys…
He also worked with Indian greats such as The Supersonics and Menwhopause. Miti alleviated Indian Rock to sounds that were truly international.
Ananda Sen first worked with Miti during the former’s role as the front for The Supersonics.
Maby Baking was a landmark moment in Indian alternative rock. It is a great album from start to finish. Not many remember it anymore. Yet it is great.
As is Sen’s Pages From The Past.
Writing this is harder than I thought it would be. Initially it was going to be a post to announce the release of my new single ‘Sky High’ from my upcoming album Pages From The Past.
But yesterday the man who made the album with me, the man who has made every album with me, my best friend, my bandmate, my mentor and the man who was like a father to me, checked out of this world and checked into the great gig in the sky.
Miti Adhikari, a legend to most, was there with me through each song’s conception to its final mastered stage. It took us 8 long years to make this 8 song album. When we got the final masters earlier this year, he called me to say that we had made something incredibly special.
This is going to be Miti’s last released body of work. Now he was a man who wanted things to be done quick, but he put up with me and the obstacles I’ve been navigating. Each song is a snapshot of my life.
Sky High was released last Friday, and on Saturday we hosted an album listening session here in Goa. Miti was still with us then albeit in hospital and passed away the next morning. Something tells me he hung on because he wanted to be around for the world to hear it.
Sen writes in an Instagram post from June 9 which reads both like an announcement and an obituary.
The album turns out to be a soft rock classic.
I don’t want to rock
I don’t want to roll
Sen sings ironically on Pages From The Past… Summer comes and goes but this album is the sound of a summer you wish never ends. Trigger is another banger.
I don’t care if you think I am special
What I am is what I want to be
I don’t need to feel enlightened
The Beatles simplicity meets The Strokes modernity on songs such as Chang and there’s the groovy Way Too Many Complications…
Way Too Many Complications is a road song. You walk away from the world for a little while and have a moment listening to Way Too Many Complications. The song is five minutes of everything-sucks-but-well-let’s-dance…
Pages From The Past has the nonchalance of The Strokes, the lyricism of Oasis and the subtlety of Arctic Monkeys. The album reeks of summers, good times, nostalgias and goodbyes.
This is the most personal piece of music I have ever created…
None of the songs have a conventional structure, and that was on purpose. We didn’t set out to make a hit record. We wanted to make a fun, authentic album which chased emotional depth instead of commerciality. Thankfully I don’t have to make a living out of being a musician anymore and this gave me the freedom to make the album that we wanted to make.
Sen writes in the same Instagram post.
Give It All Away is the most intimate and final song on Pages From The Past. It feels like a farewell ballad. Artists do live symbolic lives. This is a very rock and roll exit.
Adhikari leaves us but his ghost lives still in the music he helped create. He lives in the songs of our favorite artists. He lives in every second of pages from the past…
Sen’s Instagram post ends thus…
Dedicated to Miti, for Miti… and by Miti.
