A month ago, local band A Sound From Void was able to win the hearts of many music artistes and music enthusiasts alike with their original music during a music competition. This fourmember band is only a year old but is already leagues ahead in producing their own original works. Their goal is simple — creating contemporary music drenched in originality.
Luckey Sherpa (vocals and FX or sound effects), Prajwal Ghimire BK (drums and backing vocals), Sajan Lama (bass) and Saurav Shrestha (piano, synth and backing vocals) are the four members of the band who hail from different parts of the country.
Sherpa and Lama from Kathmandu, Ghimire BK from Pokhara, and Shrestha from Chitwan came together as a band in October 2021 while as the final year music students at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory (KJC).
Now they work for the simple objective of creating original contemporary music inspired by their brotherhood and their hunger to make more music and push the limits of their creativity.
“One of our academic directors at KJC first informed the entire class that several venues had been asking for bands for performance gigs. It was after the COVID-19 pandemic and things had been going back to normal,” Ghimire BK recalled of the beginning of the band’s musical sojourn.
“Luckey had written a few songs, so the four of us talked with each other and decided to apply for these performance gigs as a band and started our musical journey.”
After graduating in August, they have been working as independent full-time musicians and session artistes.
They have worked on projects for artistes like Abhaya Subba and Ranzen as well as organisations like Echoes in the Valley and UNICEF. Ghimire BK and Shrestha also teach drums and vocals classes.
With around nine songs like Indradhanush, Time And Borderline among others in their repertoire, the band exclusively performs at live venues like the Moksh Cafe and Jazz Upstairs.
“We haven’t started with producing our music as albums or as songs for streaming,” Sherpa said. “However, we are working on the production of Indrad-
hanush. Hopefully, by the end of 2022 we will have a music video.”
Their songs are just as diverse as the band members and thus they call it (their music) a medium that bridges the gap between pure jazz music and improvisation.
The band has a relentless focus on the portrayal of the complexity of emotions and dance around different musical genres in the process — like in Indradhanush, which is a ballad-like song about a mother calling her child back home. At the other end of the spectrum is Time And Borderline that is filled with intense and hardcore rap.
The secret to their diversity, according to Sherpa, stems from the inspirations of each band member.
Sherpa considers he is a musician from a rap and hip-hop background, and admires artistes like Biggie and Tupac Shakur.
Shrestha on the other hand draws most of his inspiration from classical European music and Shai Maestro.
Lama said that his source of inspiration is Jaco Pastorius and the Yellowjackets.
Leaning more towards jazz is Ghimire BK who said he is inspired by artistes like Brad Mehldau Trio.
“We love experimenting a lot with our music and don’t like
limiting ourselves to one,”
Sherpa said.
“Most of our songs are original songs written and composed by each band member.
Our writing process is just us blending our different styles of music into a beautiful composition,” he added.
The band’s experimental songs as well as the blend of musical genres have resulted in an unheard sound.
“It felt wrong to name our band after one certain aesthetic or musical genre,” Sherpa said. “The band’s music is unheard of and is sound from the void.”
Therefore, the band has been named A Sound From Void to
which Sherpa elaborated, “Our band’s name is also a reflection of the music we make.”
Their participation at this year’s Jazzmandu has been one of the biggest openings for their career, according to the members.
“Participating in Jazzmandu was a much unthought thing honestly,” said Sherpa.
“We never thought we would be performing on the same stage that we grew up admiring.
However, the acknowledgement of our band’s originality by artistes like Jamie and Catia (international performing artistes at the Jazzmandu 2022) as well as their interest in our music was such a beautiful feeling,” he explained.
“In fact, we are so inspired and encouraged to go beyond our creative limits and continue to experiment,” he added.
“We have applied to international music festivals too,”
Sherpa revealed.
However, as most rookie bands they are also hounded by several challenges. “Our primary challenge is our finances,” revealed Ghimire BK. “We are very new to this industry and don’t have enough credit for sponsors to invest in us yet.”
“Furthermore, we are also not aware about the managerial and business aspects of making music,” Sherpa added.
Nonetheless, the band does not seem too vexed by these challenges.
“We are only just starting out on our journey,” Sherpa said.
“We are working with shortterm solutions like splitting managerial tasks amongst each other and approaching as many people as possible for financial support.”
“We are so grateful to the support provided by our teachers at KJC, our friends and families, and even the audience at our live performances,” the band members said in unison.
“They inspire us to keep creating music and go beyond.”
Firsts
Song as a band: Over This Distance
Performance: Live performance of Over This Distance at Roya Acoustics
Fan interaction: No fan interaction as of yet but we receive a lot of appreciation after every performance
Competition: Music competition at Jazzmandu
Win: Music competition at Jazzmandu
Top 3 songs
Indradhanush
Time And Borderline
Yaad Haru