Album salutes folks who reinvent themselves

Instrumental progressive rock band’s new album ‘Evaporated People’ launched yesterday.

Flaw and Order’, an instrumental progressive rock band, had their official album launch gig on Friday at The Humming Tree in Indiranagar. Their album, known as ‘Evaporated People’, is based on the concept of Johatsu.

“Every year, hundreds of thousands of people get overwhelmed by stress, debts, marital issues and mental illnesses. They decide to completely disappear and start afresh with new names and new identities,” guitarist Paraj Kumar Singh explained. “They are called ‘Johatsu’ or ‘The Evaporated’.”

They decided to personalise this concept and, in the end, named their album ‘Evaporated People’. The band has tried to spread awareness and bring up the topic of mental illness that these people suffer from through their music. “The acronym of our first song is EMI, the second song ADHD, the third OCD and so on.”

It was difficult to bring a technical theme in their album because their music is instrumental. “Without lyrics, we had to work pretty hard to incorporate elements of these disorders and illnesses into songwriting,” he said.

Paraj has been playing music for 12 years. He has listened to everything from metal to hard rock to jazz to progressive rock.

Just like him, the other members of the band bring their own likes, dislikes and influences. “Each one brings his particular style of playing and influences and we put it all together,” he said.

The four musicians - Ajit, Sudharsan, Paraj and Adithyashankar - wanted their music to be relevant, likeable and relatable to non-musicians but also interesting enough for musicians to appreciate.

The members of ‘Flaw and Order’ had initially thought that their music wouldn’t be well-received because theirs was an instrumental progressive rock band. Everyone, including promoters and the venues, told them that it would be difficult to find shows for them. But what they soon noticed was that instrumental rock as a genre hadn’t been well explored in India. Apart from classical music, few bands had explored this space. While they expected this to work to their disadvantage, they found that there were many takers for the kind of music they played.

“Our second show was to a group of 500-600 people. We opened for a band called ‘aswekeepsearching’ - it’s a well-known post-rock Hindi band. The reception there was tremendous. Everybody got in touch with us, asking us where they could find our music and when our album would come out,” Paraj said.

The main message they want to carry with their album is about mental illness, a topic which has long been a taboo. They want to continue the conversation in a non-funny, non-shameful way.

Paraj also stresses on the importance of playing original music. “With many bands making covers of existing songs, they are driving down the market for people who make original music. It’s really important as an artist to find your own sound,” he signed off.