Touching base with Ahsan Bari

Ahsan Bari, the long-haired genius who is spearheading Sounds of Kolachi, has a lot going on but he’s never too busy to support the local music scene. Case in point: his presence at the Salt Arts production featuring Ustaad Naseeruddin Saami and Sons. Wearing a white kurta and accompanied by band member Quaid Ahmed, Bari sat in reverence once the Ustaad took the stage.

But before the production began, Instep managed to speak to him about the latest Sounds of Kolachi video, as well as a number of other things.

The conversation opened with the track ‘Allah He Dey Ga‘ for which the band has made their first official music video. It is the first song Bari composed for Sounds of Kolachi - a terrific music ensemble that mixes Eastern and Western ideas with sincerity and brilliance – and is featured on their debut album titled Elhaam that fetched the group a Lux Style Award nomination for Best Music Album earlier this year.

‘Allah He Dey Ga’ was also covered on Pepsi Battle of the Bands by music group Darvesh and is the perfect song, not only for the ongoing holy month, but pretty much any day.

“It’s the first song we ever composed,” began Bari about the ‘Allah He Dey Ga’ video, which is encompassing and fits the mood of the song very well. “It is the song that got the most mileage. People did their own covers, a lot of people actually, on the Internet. In fact, some people made videos after doing their covers. They’d call me, ask for permission and do it. We’d been planning the video but Sounds of Kolachi never did have a concept for videos and whether we’d even make one but somewhere along the way the intent to make a video emerged.”

As Bari explained the video, “It’s a simple video. We’ve taken landscapes; we’ve gone to Hingol, Kund Malir and Hamad (Khan) directed it. He had visuals in his head and the focus remains on the song.”

Speaking to Instep about the recent surge in music videos, Bari disagreed with the notion that the trend of music videos is a permanent one. “The Sajjad Ali formula is best. He keeps releasing music. The trend has picked up somewhat because of the digital age but people may not be willing to invest a lot of money in a music video unless and until there’s a massive concept such as Ali Azmat’s ‘Deewana’. That trend is done. People are gravitating towards videos logs (v-logs).”

Moving past the music video, Bari - who was music director, mentor, composer for Pepsi Battle of the Bands 2017 - revealed that he’s not involved with the upcoming season. “Kashmir and Badnaam’s albums did release but they contain what three to four songs. It isn’t a full-length record. There’s still no video of the winner band yet. So, coming back to your questions, bands are not releasing music videos as such. Indie bands produce good work. But mainstream artists are not making music or music videos, a lot of them.”

As for Ahsan Bari, a lot is coming up. “We will do a couple of more videos including one for the song ‘Chakardar’ from our debut album and we’ve started working on our second album as well. I will produce it myself with Faisal Rafi because we’re working together now. We’re business partners as well.”

“We’re producing a song for Cornetto Pop Rock these days. It’s a collaboration; there’s Ali Azmat, Abid Brohi, Khumariyaan and a new band,” said Bari before signing off.