Post-rock is meant to be breath-taking, setting reverb-heavy soothing guitar lines over sprawling layers of even more ambient music that builds up in the least expected ways. Bengaluru artist Akash Murthy probably knows this all too well. The guitarist and producer, who performs and writes post-rock/ambient music under the moniker Farfetch’d, had already perfected the art of a good, traditional post-rock album with his debut album The Alchemist in 2013, so his next move was actually a bit surprising.
Farfetch’d, who have been around far longer than the recent Pokémon Go trend, turn to tapping the strings and the hollow body of an acoustic guitar on the recently-released Southern Skies Motel . The mostly-instrumental album has an outer space theme about it, and Murthy presents electronic layers and guitar noise that permeates over his incredibly sharp but soothing fingerstyle playing and percussive guitar technique – that includes everything from tapping the guitar like a drum – on the opening epics such as ‘The Lunar Observatory’ and ‘Bastion’. Neatly divided into movements that swell and recede, it’s not like the seven-minute songs need much of patience on the listeners’ part. Murthy sings a few verses on ‘This Incoherent Pale Sky’, but lets his guitar do most of the talking, closing with a star-gazing piano section. There’s more variety on ‘Moonshine’, which features everything from percussive guitars to cinematic sounds.
The album’s shortest song, at just less than four minutes, is ‘Lasso’, is a little more drum-heavy, very much in the vein of post-rock artists such as Kaki King, whom Murthy cites as a major influence on the album. There’s a smooth laidback and simple song on ‘Collide’. Southern Skies Motel closes in the most emphatic fashion ever, like any good post-rock album should. The 10-minute trip that’s ‘Ambient Sketchbook’ let’s Farfetch’d cover sonic terrain like few other artists in India – from the melancholic piano, samples of rain and thunder that morphs into a goosebumps-inducing closing section.
Southern Skies Motel’s diversity while staying within its range is what one hopes stands the test of time. Turn this on at any time of the day or night this monsoon, and you’ll be guaranteed a sonic journey like no other.
