The highs and lows of an indie band in Nepal

 Nepal: Phosphenes have been the talk of the town in recent weeks thanks to their viral new song ‘Yestai Nai Hola’. With a refreshing take on the all-too-familiar lethargic nature of Nepali bureaucracy, the song features a retro 70s-style protagonist stumbling through Nepal from the 70s to the present and to the distant future.

 “We had a hunch from the beginning that the song had the potential to be turned into a fun and unconventional video,” says Abhishekh Pokhrel, vocalist and guitarist of Phosphenes. “The overall message in the song was a sarcastic one. Nothing much has changed for the common people from the rule of the kings to the onset of democracy in Nepal. So we wanted to ask: Is it going to stay the same forever?”

Phosphenes are known primarily for their soulful and mellow original English songs. Their debut EP, ‘Know This Time’, consists of four English songs whereas their second full-length album, ‘Sullen Days’, consists of 14 songs, two of which are in Nepali. The themes in their songs also mostly revolve around love and only a few of their songs have an accompanying visual story.

Their recently released song ‘Yestai Nai Hola’, part of the ‘Sullen Days’ album, instantly struck a chord with the Nepali audience, the tardy and apathetic bureaucracy showed in the music video being highly relatable. Although the song features some of Phosphenes’ iconic music

style—namely their simple lyrics and soothing melodies—the song also marks a drastic shift in their music. The song moves away from the minimalistic music video-style that was apparent in earlier of their works, while it also carries a socio-political commentary, something that was never seen before in their works.

“Though we have amassed a loyal following till now, we felt that our songs were not reaching the wider Nepali audience,” says Prajwal Aryal, vocalist and guitarist of Phosphenes. “So we tried to experiment writing Nepali songs too, and still keep our indie music style intact. This combination worked out well for us.”

Phosphenes, arguably one of the most popular indie band in Nepal, consists of permanent members Abhishek Pokhrel, Aman Karna, and Prajwal Aryal. In their recent songs, Nirita Yakthumba has accompanied as a bassist and vocalist. United by a shared love for indie music, the band was formed by Pokhrel and Aryal one fateful day in 2016 when Pokhrel received a random message from Aryal asking “if it was too late to form a band.” They were friends from college days and would frequently jam together, so creating a band together didn’t seem too wild of an idea. They were soon joined by Aman Karna who had experience in music production and was already part of multiple bands in the past. Supriya Moktan was also a permanent member of Phosphenes in the past, but she left the band on 2019 due to personal reasons, and the band became a trio.

“When I first listened to their music, I instantly loved it,” said Karna, who plays several musical instruments, including guitar and synthesizer, in an online interview with the Post. “However, I wanted to see how serious they were about producing music, so I took my time before joining. I eventually did join as I thought we could achieve something significant.”

On a recent chilly evening in one of the abundant cafes in Jhamsikhel, Pokhrel and Aryal were in a happy mood after the success of their recent song. Meanwhile, Karna had left some days ago for vacation as well as work in India. All of them were on a well-deserved rest before they started planning and shooting the music video of their ‘Eklai Huda Ta Jhan’ song.

Aryal and Pokhrel confessed that both of them didn’t think about music as a career when they first started. “When we uploaded our first song ‘Dust’ on SoundCloud, we had no expectations at all,” says Pokhrel. “We were beyond ecstatic when the song reached 1,000 plays on SoundCloud. Encouraged by the response, we thought of recording an EP.”

Their debut EP titled ‘Know This Time’ was released in 2017 and featured four songs: ‘Dust’, ‘Know This Time’, ‘I Will Be Gone’, and ‘Let The Universe Find You’. Both Aryal and Pokhrel co-write the lyrics for all of their songs.

The big break for Phosphenes happened in December of 2017 when they performed for Sofar Kathmandu edition alongside the bands Mi Ku and Shreeti and friends. Sofar, a music startup company started from London, UK, which specialises in organising small concerts of usually three diverse artists or bands in unusual venues around the globe. An intimate gig with passionate audience was exactly what Phosphenes needed and their reputation as a talented indie band started to spread among the live gig audience in the Kathmandu Valley.

“After our Sofar gig, we gained a niche yet loyal crowd, a crowd that wouldn’t cause unnecessary disturbance but would resonate with our music and lose themselves in our songs,” says Pokhrel.

But even when they started to amass a loyal following, it was hard to catch their gigs in the bustling live music neighbourhoods of Jhamsikhel and Thamel. The bars and restaurants in these areas often reverberate with talented musicians and bands as night falls but most of the bands play cover songs rather than original music and Phosphenes wanted to take a stand against this trend.

“In the beginning, we used to cover other band’s songs, but it wasn’t gratifying. The audience would resonate—cry, laugh, and sing along—but we couldn’t appreciate their feelings fully as they weren’t our songs, and in extension, our feelings,” says Aryal.

They stayed true to their approach to music and only performed at venues that allowed them to perform their own original songs, and from 2019, they started to notice a notable shift in the audience size in their gigs. Their musical style also started changing. When they started, folk music was at the core of their musical style. However, the band started to become more experimental and dabble in other genres—jazz, electronic, psychedelic.

“Before, from a purely musical point of view, we used to really love doing folk music. But we gradually started exploring different genres like dream pop and synth pop,” says Aryal. “When we started working on our album ‘Sullen Days’, most of our songs in it were folk songs, but there were some delays during recordings, and during that delay, we experimented with other genres and we replaced and added new songs to the album.”

For both Pokhrel and Aryal, the Beatles are their biggest inspiration. While the Beatles have a charm of their own, the thing that interested both of them was how they experimented with new genres and adapted them easily in their songs.

“They[The Beatles] first did love songs but they started experimenting with psychedelics and we looked at their process,” says Aryal. “They started with pop love songs but then they started incorporating new instruments like sitars and philosophical lyrics, which we found incredibly interesting.”

“That process of experimentation is something that we want to do with our band, too. For our next album, we want to experiment a lot more with dream pop,” adds Pokhrel.

But even with the recent success enjoyed by the band, they aren’t yet satisfied with the music industry scene in Nepal. Nepali indie music artists still struggle to financially sustain themselves just by making music, and the band has been quite vocal in the past years about their plans to enter the Indian indie scene.

“Here, we have to give away our music to tv and radio for free for streaming so we don’t receive royalty at all,” says Pokhrel. “We are receiving a lot of support and love from the younger generation, so we thought why can’t we do the same in India, too?”

Indie music in India has steadily been gaining prominence over the past few decades, and in recent times, the success of Prateek Kuhad in particular has initiated a wave of indie music. While the future goal of Phosphenes is to ride the same wave towards mainstream success, the band members agree that the plan is easier said than done.

In Nepal, our reach is limited to the audience of Kathmandu since everything is so centralised here, admits Karna. “However, in India, there is Delhi, Bombay, Hyderabad, etc., and a lot more opportunities for growth. Though we might need to struggle a bit, I am sure we can find success in a few years.”

While the future plans of the band lie abroad, there are countless obstacles in the present, too. Indie scene in Nepal is fickle—young artists form hopeful new bands in their early 20s and majority of the bands break apart when the members reach their mid to late 20s. Phosphenes so far have navigated this dilemma with small hiccups here and there. Three years back, Aryal entered the financial world and now he has a day job as a relationship manager for Mahalaxmi Bikas Bank.

“I was genuinely interested in the financial world and wanted to explore that world, too,” says Aryal. “However, the happiness that I get from creating my own music is incomparable to anything else. The corporate world is hollow to its core.”

“I think that’s the thing when you become an adult. Some people get married, some people have kids, some go abroad. People change and priorities change,” says Pokhrel. “Nepali artists like Bartika Eam Rai and Sajjan Raj Vaidya have their own day jobs but they haven’t stopped making music. I think we will also have the same trajectory in life—no matter what we won’t stop making music.”

Shranup Tandukar