Dropbox Talent: Tarana Marwah

Wild City explores the freshest sounds from the subcontinent in Dropbox Talents. This section isn’t about the who’s who in the scene, it's about relatively unheard of producers and musicians who we think make good music and are worth your time. If you’d like us to listen to your sounds, send the relevant info to music@thewildcity.com or contact us privately on SoundCloud.

Delhi based vocalist, songwriter, keyboardist and producer Tarana Marwah is our latest DropBox Talent. The multitalented young artist has just released her debut EP ‘Komorebi’ under her solo electronic avatar by the same name.

This is by no means Marwah’s first project – she’s a trained vocalist and piano/ keyboard player, performing in the past for the Kamakshi Khanna Collective, its three woman offshoot River as well as promising young electronic outfit Tankbund.

Whimsy seems to play a large role in Marwah’s production and a lot of thought and effort has gone into projecting that, right from the neon styled artwork to the title (Komorebi is a Japanese word for “sun light which filters through tree leaves”). Marwah also tells us that the 4 track downtempo, dreamy EP has been inspired by Japanese anime soundtracks (though we picked that up when we saw that the EP opener was called ‘Miyazaki’s dream’).

‘Komorebi’ is a curious little EP. Its minimal production and use of sharp, precise and tinkering melodies give it a peculiar, wistful feel that creates the foundation for its sound. It’s pretty, intelligently arranged visual music with a mood that immediately brings to mind a firefly specked Ghibli production, particularly in the first three tracks. The final track ‘Kyoto Breeze’, produced along the same lines as its predecessors, is the only one to feature Marwah’s vocals. Creatively, it feels a bit incongruent with rest of the EP, though there's no denying that she has a trained voice. The college harmony reminiscent vocal arrangement and simplistic lyrics felt a little uninspired and didn’t quite do it for us like the rest of 'Komorebi' did.

Still, ‘Komorebi’ is certainly worth your time and it's extremely heartening to see more women producing music in a space that's otherwise dominated by men. You can stream the EP in its entirety below. She’s performing on 20 March in New Delhi (details here) and you can follow her on Facebook and SoundCloud for updates and a better idea of her sound.

Words: Diya Gupta