Parvyn and Josh Bennett
For me, collaboration is all about listen-respond-listen-respond, with a “Yes! and…” approach to take what other people offer with positivity and openness. This is true whether in the same room together or in different cities sharing files across the Internet. The tyranny of distance meant there wasn’t a chance to be in the studio together with Nick and Anita, but the result was a chance to listen and absorb the music more before needing to add to it. I wandered the house for days humming the parts and internalising the rhythms and melody before sitting down to play along, a luxury rarely afforded (or affordable) when hiring a studio by the hour. Hearing the amazing ideas, Nick and Anita then responded which produced such ‘goosebump’ moments, and the result sounded to my ears like we’d been in the same room all along.
Parvyn and I wanted to base our contributions on our Indian Classical backgrounds, using a Spring raga called ‘Basant Mukhari” for melodic ideas, and two rhythmic cycles: a slow 48-beat cycle called ‘Vilambit Ektal’ and a fast 7-beat cycle called ‘Rupaktal’ divided 3-2-2, played at half speed to Nick’s 2-2-3 guitar line and turning his 7 beats into 14. But then, like watching a child grow and become their own person, we wanted to allow the musical ideas to move unhindered away from formal structure, so when an idea was presented that didn’t fit within ’the rules’, we could respond with “Yes! and…"
Josh Bennett
