Abby V and Ricky Kej meld Indian classical music and modern sounds on AARAMBH
04 December 2023
Newsdesk
Across continents and time zones, the young master vocalist Abby V and three-time GRAMMY-winning, Billboard #1 composer-producer, Ricky Kej have formed a friendship and a way of collaborating that yields musical magic. AARAMBH, a full-length album for the UK-based, South Asian-focused music media platform Sufiscore, finds the Toronto-based singer and Instagram and YouTube sensation lending his extraordinary voice to a vibrant set of Kej compositions, plus a fetching cover of Lennon & McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ (with the accomplished Asad Khan on sitar). Joining Abby V on these tracks, which merge Indian classical music, electronica, strings, beat-based ambient music and other genres, is a star-studded roster of Indian vocalists including KS Chithra, Jonita Gandhi, Benny Dayal, Sona Mohapatra, Pratibha Singh Baghel, Sivaangi, Antara Nandi, + Asad Khan on sitar.
As Abby V’s own words, “Music, including classical, is constantly evolving. I’ve always been taught to embrace these changes and expand the boundaries of creativity, and that’s exactly what we’ve attempted with this project. The beauty of it is that Ricky can bring all these elements together so beautifully and concisely. I’m so incredibly proud that we achieved this. I’ve sung in English, Latin, German, a lot of Hindustani and Carnatic music, and a lot of what I present online is an amalgamation of styles. I want to present it so it’s not restricted to a certain part of the audience. This album truly stands for that. I love experimenting with a lot of traditional forms of music and presenting them in new ways.”
AARAMBH is produced by South Asian-focused music media platform Sufiscore, a label known to celebrating creative processes with leading South Asian musicians across the globe. Abby V’s vocal virtuosity and effortless rapport in duet settings, along with Ricky Kej’s genre-defying instrumentation, beats and harmonic colours, create a harmonious fusion of diverse genres. As Ricky Kej says, “The heart of the album is traditional Indian classical music but the instrumentation is very modern — it’s in a palette that will appeal to people who listen to many kinds of music. We’re taking Indian classical music to listeners that would not normally listen to it.”
Sufiscore is not just a traditional label but a YouTube channel amassing millions of views of songs from the Asian and South Asian markets. By celebrating new creative processes with leading musicians adapting to adversity as they continue to explore global fusion, Sufiscore is opening doors to international collaborations wherever musicians are in the world. Through live-syncing, remote recording and other practices, Sufiscore seeks to usher in new ways of making and consuming music online. In addition to the work of Abby V and Ricky Kej, Sufiscore has released such albums as Inheritance by vocalist Pratibha Singh and Unbounded – Abaad by sitar virtuoso Purbayan Chatterjee, who is joined by Singh as well as Béla Fleck, Gary Husband, Jordan Rudess, Zakir Hussain, Antonio Sanchez and more. AARAMBH released on the 24th November internationally through Sufiscore.
