I listen to sudan’s new release — pocket friendly : volume i, at Bonobo, where he does a launch party and an elongated set with old numbers, accompanied by friends who are integral to the fabric of his art. The room is packed to a point of eruption, almost — and I find myself pressed against the glass partition and the bar, video-calling a then-friend with one hand to brandish him with the spectre of sound, and holding a constant-partner-in-music with the other, while letting us getting enveloped by the massive chunks of sound that float and swell against us. Over my brief familiarity with the artist’s music – I have been acquainted with the kind of impact his work reproduces over his audience over and over. sudan’s art is almost an exercise in electronic intimacy, the kind that works brilliantly when done live — and at some point, I watch hands of eighteen to forty eight year olds clapping along with enthusiasm that is only that pronounced when what surrounds one is good.
pocket friendly: volume 1 is described to be “a 4-track EP by sudan, stitched together with people closest to him. It drifts across moods and sounds — from the breezy opener “:)” to “ghost,” with Frizzell Dsouza, before diving into a collaboration with Anoushka Maskey on the dreamy “lighthouse” and Tejas on the reflective “a hiatus.” Born out of friendship and shared moments rather than a set concept, the project embraces its scattered inspirations, carried by electronic textures, warm live instrumentation, and voices that ground and elevate sudan’s songwriting.” The project is interesting, because in some ways I had anticipated an elongation of the artist’s last release, the now majorly successful “sudan?” — a conclusion to what has acquired a certain mythos in the circuitry of worship of the Indian independent scene. What I am met with, instead, is a sort of expansion — where while a fully formed project is not what is being offered (or promised), the notes of what could be are audible. It is clever, because the artist does not take on himself the burden to create something radically different from his erstwhile body of work, instead choosing to build interest — his own and his listeners’ — towards what he could possibly do, in the near future.
The EP features familiar collaborators, Anoushka Maskey, Tejas, Frizzell D’Souza, and Nathan Thampy. My personal favorite, perhaps, is the opener — which also features Gautam David on saxophone — who adds a wonderful jazzy texture to the synths, creating an ambient fog – which disperses almost abruptly with a quick ascendance of the keys, setting you into the groove of the record. The obvious standout, however, is lighthouse, Maskey and sudan’s collaborations have always worked because of the complimentary nature of her embodied, velvety vocals with the airy arrangements that the latter specializes in. It almost comes off as a kind of ice-skating, a wonderful dance of contrasts playing it forward for an immersion to be born – and I can envision Maskey on a fully neo-soul record, and sudan on an R&B one, although presumably the duo would like to experiment beyond genre-fic constraints. The collaboration with Tejas “a hiatus” plays with soundbeds from the last album —with sudan integrating the kind acoustic-indie-heavy voicework that the former is known for into his own body of craft, all culminating into a prog-jazz adjacent work, before drowning it out with a return to the aforementioned sonic familiarity. There seems to have been a metamorphosis of sorts – where a lot of the hollowing emptiness, the kind of mourning that was on the last album, has filled out into a more personified warmness — which might be owed to the brevity of the record, or the passage of time.
pocket-friendly : volume 1 is interesting because it almost feels like preparation, of a widening of artistic boundaries and warmth in personal dynamics. For one, sudan’s got everyone’s attention – and I do not see any dwindling in the near future.
