Artist: Mahesh
EP: Beyond the Door
Release Date: 17th January, 2013
Mixed and Mastered by: Prajwal Pai
Label: Independent
In these times, where music is ruled by robotic sounding distorted guitars and use of different sound effects, one often feels the need to sit back and relax to the sound of pure unadulterated acoustic music. Something similar has been attempted by Bangalore based Singer-Songwriter; Mahesh, in his 6-song EP titled Beyond the Door. Consisting of 5 songs and an instrumental track, the EP claims to be a full-course meal which will satisfy your musical appetite. But is it good enough to satisfy my appetite? We’ll see about that in a moment 😉
The track-listing for the EP is:
- All I Need
- Towards the Edge
- Confused and Alone
- Life
- You Stole My Heart
- 402 (Instrumental)
None of the songs have drums, or any major percussion for that matter; acoustic in its true form. A nice blend of Blues and Folk can be seen in the tracks and certainly a lot of soul in the singing. But frankly, the EP didn’t impress me much. Two songs really impressed me – All I Need and Towards the Edge. All I Need has a really nice progression and vocals, definitely the best track in the EP. Towards the Edge on the other hand is about a boy who regrets cheating on his girlfriend, who is on the verge of committing suicide. The track has a nice bass line and a lot of soul. The vocals clearly remind me of Tracy Chapman, similar vocal delivery. Sadly, except for these two tracks, the rest of the tracks didn’t feel up to the mark. The themes of the songs were perfectly laid, but somewhere I felt they lacked life. For example – You Stole My Heart is a really nice track, with a gloomy sound and ambience. But somewhere down the line it lacks the punch. Maybe a light percussion would have helped. Same opinion for the song You Stole My Heart. Life scores full points for the lyrics, but loses in the music part yet again. As the songs progressed through the EP, the strumming patterns seemed to be repetitive and I would have surely liked some extra instruments added. The last track – 402 is an instrumental where Mahesh displays his composing skills, simplicity at its best.
Though the attempt of sticking to a minimalistic approach is commendable, the fact that it needed something more cannot be denied. Hopefully we’ll see a more ambient release in his next attempt. Wishing Mahesh all the best for the future J
