Aswekeepsearching and Indian Indie’s Brightest Team Up for Mental Health Campaign

About four months into the lockdown and further heavy restrictions on movement and gatherings, the music industry understands it may well be the last to open up but artists remain creative. Pune-based post-rock band Aswekeepsearching are amongst those who also want to shine a light on the importance of mental wellbeing during such a time.

While they’ve launched a new three-track EP |||| that comprises reworked versions of songs like “Ativa,” Reminiscence” and “Rooh,” there’s also a larger campaign called #foryourmind which sees them not just contribute via music and merch sales to foundations in the mental health field but also trying to bring together fellow independent artists. Bassist Robert Alex says, “This is more than just charity. This is about creating awareness and building a community. Be it a new song the artist gives away as first listen or as part of a compilation, a live session of social media, a wallpaper download, physical merchandise from their inventory, or maybe a poem that the artist has recently written.”

In addition to discussions, livestream chats and more, at the crux of #foryourmind are other artists – bands, singer-songwriters, producers and visual designers/illustrators – contributing as part of a 15-day campaign which launched earlier this week. All funds raised from sales of music, artwork, merch and more go towards to the Minds Foundation in Nizamabad, Anjali Mental Health Rights Organization in Kolkata, The Live Love Laugh Foundation in Mumbai and Manas Foundation in New Delhi.

The campaign includes everyone from metal band Bloodywood to singer-songwriter Hanita Bhambri, illustrator Anoop Bhat, bands like Street Stories from Shillong and folk-rock band Swarathma. Singer-songwriter Raghav Meattle said in a statement, “Musicians and artists can so easily go into a slump and with the lives we lead, it gets really hard to come out of it! Kudos to the boys at AWKS for doing this and I’m happy to do whatever I can to raise awareness and help the community of artists.”

Street Stories’ frontman Pezo Kronu adds, “This is something that is spoken so less of yet it impacts everyone and especially at times like this we feel that getting professional help or talking about it and simply bringing awareness, is the need of the hour.”

Contribute to the campaign here.