SYEYL’S new EP, Temporal Drift, is magnificent. I listen to it in the midst of Kolkata traffic, in the throes of noise and confusion for the first time — there is an instant transposition of location, almost cinematic in its quality. Instrumental EPs, to me, always find themselves in an odd dichotomy of sorts — either they try to integrate a surplus of sounds that get lost in their search for coherence, or they have so distinct a sonic identity that you carry its tangible aura with you for a distinct amount of time.
Speaking about the EP, Hrithik Arora a.k.a SYEYL says “My sophomore EP – Temporal Drift, is about the mind drifting to past memories or the future and an inability to stay in the present.While the previous album was about grounding myself in the present moment, this EP is more of an assurance that it’s okay to ‘drift’ as long as you allow yourself to feel something.”The record is emotional, in all its electronica, synths, sitar loops, tribal chants, 808s, and hi-hats.
The first track, Ecstasy, is meant to conjure the feeling of falling in love for the first time. It has a sitar loop, a distortion of a sampled vocal of a YouTuber doing an ad-lib, a horn — and you immediately see where the artist is going with this project, it is vibrant, it is enveloping, it almost grips you by the shoulders and places you in a room with blue-purple-yellow lights. The second track, Ascent, is a few steps down into the spiraling staircase of SYEYL’S consciousness. He writes, “The track ‘Ascent’ is built around the chants of the Maasai tribe from Kenya, there was something about that which got stuck in my head. This was followed by a Arp on an emulation of an Oberheim synth, paired with 808 drums and the electric sounds of the pulsar 32, Ascent feels like being amongst the clouds.” What is interesting, is that the switch from a sitar loop to a chant does not sound discordant, or messy, but a genuine progression — almost like the fog that the artist envelops you in right from the start grows stronger hands and pulls you closer in.
One of my favorites off the record, however, is Seaglass. It is textured, and the synth hi-hat pairing does good for it, because it builds this sense of cognitive anticipation, before giving away to another sitar loop — which really works in its favor, paired with distant voices The percussion line does not get grating, although it maintains a consistency with the previous tracks.
Ficus begins with a reading of Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar, as the artist states, “At some point I was stuck in a loop of indecisiveness about a lot of decisions about my life, at that time I came across a poem by Sylvia Plath from ‘The Bell Jar’. She uses a fig tree as a metaphor for choosing where you want your future to be heading. She depicts how she sees her life branching out before her like a fig tree, and how at “the tip of every branch…a wonderful future beckoned and winked.” Here is the thing, the track does not slowly branch out — it works in spurts and bursts, before solidifying into a whole, composite track.
.The EP establishes itself as this narrative circle of love and loss, like a water cycle of grief and euphoria — as it ends with Ego Death. The artist describes it as, “a complete loss of self identity. This track is an ode to a distant memory, thinking of situations that maybe could have had different outcomes but at the same time accepting things as they are, understanding that endings are new beginnings – a chance to be who you are meant to be.” In the ambient, atmospheric music, you hear light notes of birdsong — a transition from the 80s Japan ode in Rave in a Forest. It is perhaps simple, as compared to the other tracks, and also a dissolution of the sense of intoxicating instrumentality that you find yourself embroiled in on the first track — a release from the percussion lines and backbeats and distortions, a descent into a sort of sad resignation.
Temporal Drift negotiates the spaces between time and space and throws emotion and memory in as the building blocks to a connecting bridge, and Arora is an artist who knows his craft to the bone. What is left, for me to say, is that every bit of foresight with the artist and his future projects is positive, and filled with hope.
