Speaking to Instep at length, the vocalist explains plans to release their post-Pepsi album, Khwaab.
Kashmir, the music group featuring an introverted bunch of musicians with Bilal Ali (vocalist), Vais Khan (lead guitarist), Usman Siddiqui (bass guitarist), Shane J. Anthoney (drummer), Zair Zaki (rhythm guitarist), and Ali Raza (keyboardist), won Pepsi Battle of the Bands against finalist band Badnaam in 2017.
But their debut album has not been released. Though they have continued to appear on various seasons of the music series since winning and have gone on to play quite a few live shows, their album is unreleased.
Bayaan, winners of Pepsi Battle of the Bands in 2018, on the other hand, will be releasing their record titled Suno at the upcoming fifth edition of Lahore Music Meet. It does sound a bit murky, even more so when you remember that some of their songs were initially available for downloading from PBOTB website before they disappeared.
But as singer-songwriter from the group, Bilal Ali tells Instep in an exclusive conversation, Kashmir isn’t far behind when it comes to releasing their post-PBOTB album, Khwaab.
“The album is coming out on February 29 with a music video to go with it,” says Bilal. “The album has been ready for a while; we didn’t know how to release the album. Should we release singles or music videos? We’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve released a couple of music videos like ‘Kaghaz Ka Jahaz’, ‘Pari’, ‘Khwaab’ with ‘Parwana Hun’ being the last music video. Now we plan to release the music video of ‘Dhoop’ and the album, Khwaab, with it.”
As Bilal notes, the time to release the record is almost here since it’s been ready for the last two months. Though they might release more music videos afterwards, dropping Khwaab in the market is the main goal right now.
For the last three weeks, Bilal admits he’s been working on the album cover and the band has moved onto making PR packages now, working on t-shirts for the new album. As has become the norm, t-shirts and even accessories are designed by bands. A Noori keychain from Peeli Patti Aur Raja Jaani Ki Gol Dunya still lives in my closet as does a Sikandar Ka Mandar t-shirt and Forever South (FXS) badge.
Going by the times, Kashmir will not drop the record on digital mediums (out of the blue though) but via a formal event.
The record will contain at least 8-9 songs and it is, as Bilal puts it, a compilation in a sense with older and newer tracks.
“We just want to get it over with,” he says, surprisingly. “Half of the songs for the second album are done and the other half is being worked upon so we want to move onto the next album because this album never released.”
The idea is to release Khwaab properly and quickly move on to the next record, says the vocalist-songwriter.
Their last music video, ‘Parwana Hun’ in terms of logistics was a bit of a nightmare but the end result was worth the effort. And as with all Kashmir songs, the music video carries an inner-outer theme.
“We almost drowned after 15 minutes of rainfall at the original location and it had to be shot at Hub, Baluchistan. We suffered financial and data loss,” reveals Bilal.
Talking about the meaning behind the music video where a man within a cave baffles because whatever empathy others show is dismissed by him. He then runs towards a fire and comes to the other side, which is somehow peaceful.
Discussing the concept of ‘Parwana Hun’, Bilal says: “When there is a war going inside, the person himself can’t see anything and he just wants to get through it. Most of the times, you stop yourself from seeing the truth and the light.”
The song will of course be on the upcoming album. But not all PBOTB originals by Kashmir have made it to Khwaab. Originals like ‘Budha Baba’ as well as ‘Faislay’ have not made the final cut.
“For Faislay, there’s an EP being worked out while ‘Budha Baba’ is a song we’re working on right now. We’ve recorded it multiple times but this time we think we have gotten it right. ‘Budha Baba’ is a really weird song; if it’s a good mix of analogue and digital, if guitars and vocals are done live, it sounds very good. We’re working on it with music producer Faisal Rafi and we’re halfway through it. I’m playing guitars on it as well.”
For the music video of ‘Dhoop’ – which the band has funded themselves – they’ve roped in Umer Anwar as director. Among his greatest credits is the music video of ‘Aadat’ by Atif Aslam (back then Jal with Goher Mumtaz).
“‘Dhoop’ is my favourite song from the album and the first song we recorded after winning PBOTB. Umer Anwar, the band and I were completely in love with ‘Dhoop’ and he was involved in the process of recording the song and writing the lyrics.”
Bilal notes that it’s a passion project and after two years, Umer Anwar and the band have finally achieved what they set out to do. “He’s done ‘Bachpan’ for Kaavish; ‘Mera Bichra Yaar’ for Strings, ‘Wakht’ for EP and ‘Aadat’ for Atif Aslam/Jal.”
As for the upcoming music video that marks the launch of the album, Bilal promises that it will be different from Anwar’s previous works. “It’s going to be a surprise,” he concludes.
