Musical journey of four young architects — Tale of a traveling band – Nowhere Station
FEATURE | MAY 31, 2020:
By Jonathan Donald Syiemlieh
What began as a busking project among four friends, who were at that point of time pursuing a course in planning and architecture, transformed into a full-fledged independent band creating their own music.
The band would busk wherever an opportunity provided itself, and it was during one of their road trips that birthed the conception of a travelling music band that finds itself in the middle of nowhere. The band previously known as ' The middle of nowhere' is popular on social media by the name 'nowherestation'; hence, they have been known as 'Nowhere station' since 2017.
The current line-up roster includes Rijul Singh (vocals and rhythm guitar), Anurag Hazarika (lead guitar), Dhruv Dhingra (bass guitar and synth) and Anant Mital (drums). In eagerness of creating an impact as a band that is brought by the people, to the people, they launched a crowd-funding campaign to fund their first album. And their maiden single 'Oceans beyond' from this crowd-funded album released across all major music streaming platforms on the 8th of May, 2020.
The band establishes their stand-point about using creative block as a period of inspiration by collaborating with their friends – violinist Bala (Balakumar Ravichandran) and digital artist Pranay Dilawari. The richness of the sound of the violin and the artwork compliment the layered sentiments of this song and further reiterate their belief about using collaboration and collective creation as a part of the creative process. Melancholic yet inspirational, Oceans Beyond leaves you feeling uplifted in a period of ambiguity.
Following their last single 'Baby Bye Bye' which was a fun song about fickle minded modern day lovers, this song delves deeper into the creative process – a message to all creators outthere.
The band plans to release a new song from the album every month, with the whole album being released in its entirety in September. The next single, "You've Got Me", picks up where Oceans Beyond leaves off, describing the superficially-enticing world that the band was thrown into, albeit with its own complexities and contradictions that weren't always explicit.
Nowhere Station has always placed an emphasis on individual interpretation and collaboration among artists, and therefore will be collaborating with different artists (graphic designers, musicians, painters, poets etc) for each release. While the original plan was to release every single in a different Indian city – the band setting up and leaving multiple 'Nowhere Stations' in their wake – the current situation with the COVID 19 pandemic has shifted the releases online across all music sharing platforms.