2024 has seen a new batch of independent artists who create music using sounds that have not been explored before. Poorvaxxxpress, a multidisciplinary project of Delhi-based artist Poorva Singh is one among them. With an interest in exploring the sensuality of the voice, her off-beat production and intimate, frank songwriter have made her an artist to look out for.
Her debut EP ‘Delayed Departure’ highlights the tension of letting go of familiar dreams of unknown realities using poems, friends’ voice notes, and some vivid production elements. The 10-minute journey begins like a ‘prayer’ with the track ‘Second Thoughts, a track that talks about the feeling of being ‘stuck’ in the mundane every day and its anxieties. The burden of being in the same thought – cycle is mediated by a voice note from the artist’s friend. The voice note reads a passage from ‘M Train’ by Patti Smith where she speaks of her relationship with her late husband, which signifies that things change slowly or do not even with support. The artist embraces this feeling and tries to find hope that is not certain but tangible through the track which features some raw, unfiltered piano melodies that feel like broken thoughts.
Intentionally producing this EP as a collage of sounds is a stroke of brilliance, if you ask me. While the vocoder and autotune might sound strange to the ear at the start, these eclectic production elements have been very intentional and simplify the harsh realities of one’s mental condition. The second track is a brief, haunting, albeit dreamy interlude ‘1-800-PDDB’ which intends to act as the final breath before you get on the train. The trippy melodies and muffled and breaking vocals capture the anxiety perfectly including the smallest tinkles of it. The production for this track designed to emulate one’s psychological relationship with time (slow, fast, jumpy) also reminds me of aesthetics like weirdcore and dreamcore. Everything you hear in this track is familiar but placed in a different, horrific light that captures the feeling of anxiety extremely well and the plea of not going back in the same direction one has left.
While the mind space ‘Delayed Departure’ explores is nothing profound, it is indeed very honest. ‘Sunset/Sundress,’ the third track feels like a time machine in a song while talking about the feeling of moving through life while seeing everything in low resolution – slightly blurry but also like you’re returning from something. The fourth track ‘Koshish,’ however, sees Poorvaxxxpress using voices and sounds that constantly morph and swirl revealing itself as a fragment of a larger exploration which she hopes to grow beyond this project as well. It also marks her first track written in Hindi with distorted vocals, semi-classical beats, and intimate lyrics. Influenced by artists like Lifafa and JPEGMAFIA, both these two tracks also bring liminal spaces between hesitation and assertation together.
To finish off the EP is ‘Maybe I,’ a sonic postcard that the artist made to a friend. It has an old voice note that a friend had sent her and talks about the idea of love and giving it the perfect, uplifting end.
All in all, ‘Delayed Departure’ feels like a piece of painting. Each stroke tells a different part of the story. Almost nothing we consider as the ‘norms’ for making music is present, which is exactly what makes this vulnerable collage of sounds so personal, interesting, and refreshing.
