After being named as best debut artist by multiple outlets, Karan Verma’s debut album, Parichay, is finally out. The record is around 30 minutes long, and features 8 songs. A press release from the artist states : “Parichay marks a defining artistic
moment for Karan, an evolution from a powerful performer to a singular voice in India’s independent music landscape. Across eight emotionally charged tracks, Parichay serves as both an introduction and an assertion, a musical exploration of self-identity, vulnerability, and truth.“Every song on Parichay was built to last not for weeks, but for decades,” says Karan. “It’s a piece of me in every sense-raw, authentic, and honest.”
The album positions itself as a bold debut statement in the Indian indie scene, bridging traditional influences with modern rock soundscapes. Drawing from his training in opera and Western classical under Gilles Denizot at A.R. Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory, and Indian classical mentorship under Murtaza Khan Tapas, Karan crafts a sonic experience that feels timeless yet contemporary.”
Verma is going for a more Hindustani-derivative rock soundscape on this album — something that you hear right from the first track onward. A lot of the record is rooted in the sonic sensibilities of 2010s Indian pop-rock, the kind you would hear on a Faridkot, aswekeepsearching or a Parvaaz record. It is refreshing to hear, because it does not age the album into the present so chronically into trends that it becomes an artifact you cannot go back to, but only acknowledge. Instead, he is relying on more classic ideas of independent Hindie rock, which works in his favor and also contributes to his idea of making his music “last decades”. Verma also displays extremely reliable vocal ability — which is proof of his training across genres. It especially comes through on Disc 1, wherein he is more reliant on his Indian classical training — especially on tracks like Megha (in terms of arrangement and delivery, although it has an 80s disco beat in the background), and Ishq Mein Aabad (which crosses over to more Sufi-influenced inquiries).
Disc 2 has Verma tap into more rock and funk influenced sonics — and is arguably the more interesting part of his record. It also shifts from a more romantic identification to an inward gaze towards his own meaning making. Qafila has an exciting guitar riff, and you can sense the “darker” turn in this half of the album – minus Laapata, which while revelling in the sense of misdirection and being lost in confusion, has a surprisingly whimsy line of thought. Farmaan is a surprise – because of the sudden Arabic infusion, but my personal favorite – has to be Khanabadosh, which is more distended, skipping from funk to a pop-rock turn —all coalescing to form a certain fervent youthfulness. This is something that stretches across the body of Verma’s work, it is almost located in this wild, candid acquisition of self that one only finds in a phase of life that is, perhaps to be “cringe”, young and free.
The record is good, and all tracks are worth re-listens — obviously so. The only Achilles’ heel, perhaps, is Verma’s loyalty to rock and returning to it repeatedly, although more experimental music-making procedures seep in periodically. It is an act of faith, perhaps, a listener can commit in trusting the artist — for breaking genre-fic confinements, because one can hear it — this is someone who has the education and the repertoire required to unleash himself onto a body of work that does not withhold itself so. It is, undeniably, a wonderful sensation to be able to tell that a good body of work is just an indication for a larger magnum opus that awaits around the corner — and I can see it happening for Verma. Until the unfolding of the same, listen to Parichay.
