aham Suhail was drawn to the arts from an early age. She sang for her school choir, played the melodica at the school assembly, and also learned how to play the piano as a child. By 12 she was writing poetry and drawing illustrations; by her teens she was jamming with underground bands.

Her passion for music soon blossomed into a career that has seen her both study the craft at the Berklee College of Music and create alternative ethnic fusion tunes that bring together musical elements from the East and the West.

“It is always hard for me to describe my music in words,” the singer tells Instep. “My compositional and performance pieces are each like a lived experience.” Her work mostly falls under the alternative fusion, world, and ambient electronic labels; genres she was drawn towards through travel and the “curiosity for ancient and forgotten cultures, traditions, and sonic textures.”

“[Many] questions have run through my mind from my late teens to today,” she explains. “Who am I, to which tribe do I belong? What is music? What is my best takeaway from being a student of traditional music forms (Western classics, and later, South Asian raagas)? What are my own, authentic expressions of both visual and sonic arts? In what stylistic and aesthetic ways can I marry my fascination for the ancient with my fancy for unique hybrids of sounds? What do I do with my weirdly treated soundscapes using certain recorded samples?”

An exploration of these ideas not only helped her connect more with her identity as a cross-genre composer, vocalist, and producer, but has also led to the creation of projects like the recent Pari Sufna E.P. and her upcoming debut album Mitti.

“Mitti is a travel compilation album comprising of seven tracks,” she details. “The recording of this album started with my journey to Kolkata, India, in 2016, where I was studying music and working. With my developing interest in their local Baul music, and also jamming with some jazz and world musicians from Europe and Canada, I put together an arrangement of Baul-jazz-folk instruments and took this to the studio. Later, in Pakistan, I continued composing with various inspirations.”

These sparks of creativity came in a variety of forms. The melody of ‘Sajjan Yaar’, the dhol in ‘Pauna 6’, and the Punjabi poetry and accordion in ‘Mein Kamli Mastani’ (ideated by a British-Pakistani music producer), for instance, served as the ‘inspiration triggers’ for these songs.

The title of the album came later when Maham was unveiling the songs to the world. “The name, “Mitti”, I conceived in early 2021, when I finally decided to run a ‘release marathon’ for these tracks.” Five of the seven songs on the album – including ‘Pauna 6’, ‘Mein Kamli Mastani’, and ‘Exile to Space’, the production of the music videos of which happened as a major independent project between 2021 and 2022 – have already been released, while the two Kolkata songs will be out soon.

Her latest single is the bilingual ‘Dil Mi Ravad’ (Persian for ‘My Heart Is Out Of My Hand’). “The composition of ‘Dil Mi Ravad’ started for me with the study of flamenco rhythms, while keeping in mind this Persian melody in a 6/4 timing that had been composed earlier by my late great-uncle and modified later by me. As is my trademark arrangement style, I put together instruments and musicians that made sense to me in the context of a cross-genre blend of flamenco-Arab-South Asian sound, but within a jazz fusion framework.”

The song was composed, arranged, and produced by the singer, in Valencia, Spain, with “some top-notch Berklee College musicians, professors, and studio technicians”, including Berklee professor Sergio Martinez, who helped with the flamenco groove and is also the percussionist featured on the recording.

Speaking of the institution, Maham cherishes her time at the music school in Spain. “I am grateful to have the honour of being the only Pakistani student to have been to the Valencia (Masters’) campus of the prestigious Berklee College of Music,” the singer says.

She attended the program on a scholarship, and reveals she had realized around two years prior to finally applying to Berklee that she wanted to study music production. “Always being one full of composition and production ideas, and having had to rely on local studio professionals who didn’t quite always ‘get me’, I realized that even in order to be a better producer, I’d have to learn production, involving some tech and engineering aspects.”

Berklee provided just that opportunity. “Berklee was enriching, in terms of being eye-opening about how things work in the music business in the West, coming across some very well-established names in the industry and getting mentorship and appreciation from them for my original ideas and work, which I would barely get in Pakistan. Also, of course, one big value-addition Berklee did for me was to [give me the chance to] get more savvy with tech. So now, for example, I not only use three audio softwares – I was only using one of these three before – for composition and production, but I am also performing solo on my Ableton rig.”

Her learnings are on display in her striking blend of sounds, and have also propelled her into the sync music business, including recent collaborations with an adventure documentary as well as other videos. “Sync music – or synchronisation music – is the music or audio, accompanying videos,” she explains. “I have done the score and sound design for projects ranging from Los Angeles (Astral Voyage Studio) to Shimshal Valley (Pakistan), to a DVC (Digital Video Commercial) with Vivo Mobiles, and more.”

As for the future, Maham aims to continue exploring her fusion sound while expanding her canvas. “The plan is to put to use more of my multi-stylistic compositional skills, my recorded sample library, and my flair for soundscape-y design work, to film, series, and ads, in the future, InshaAllah!”

It is always hard for me to describe my music in words,” Maham says. “My compositional and performance pieces are each like a lived experience.” Her work mostly falls under the alternative fusion, world, and ambient electronic labels; genres she was drawn towards through travel and the “curiosity for ancient and forgotten cultures, traditions, and sonic textures.