Abhibyanjana Emerges As A Singer-Songwriter with A Dreamy Edge On 'City of My Heart'

There is no shortage of singer-songwriters expressing their heart out over guitar plucks, and unless there is standout penmanship behind it, the repertoire starts to blend into monotony. While Gangtok's Abhibyanjana might start from the same tradition, she takes a cue from her influences like Angel Olsen and Mitski to have the courage to experiment with idiosyncratic sonic decorations on her latest EP 'City of My Heart'.

For instance, as she dives deeper into the heartbreak and wishes for the life before it on the title track, the simple soundscape of lofty vocals and guitar plucks begins to get engulfed with distorted rhythms, foreboding drones and sounds feeding back beyond tonality. The memories referred to in 'Powerless' begin to leak onto the performance in the form of speech samples and ambient field recordings. Even simpler numbers like the opener 'In Your City' feature clever arrangements of layered vocal parts interplaying with string plucks.

Though the effort does briefly stray far from the emotional core of the 4-track release on the closer 'Promise of the Light', with the beat feeling at odds with the rest of the sonic palette of the EP. However, on the whole, the courage pays off in not only making Abhibyanjana's songs more poignant but also placing her in a sonic world more interesting than that of most of her peers.

Listen to 'City of My Heart' below and follow Abhibyanjana for more information.

Image by Pravav Pariyar