How A Hearing Disorder Led to Disco Puppet’s Exceptional New Album, ‘Love and Everything Depressing’

In 2019, Bengaluru-based drummer, singer-songwriter and electronic music producer Shoumik Biswas aka Disco Puppet learnt about hyperacusis, a hearing disorder that’s less common only than tinnitus.

Biswas says in a note accompanying their new album Love and Everything Depressing, “One morning, after playing a particularly loud gig, I woke up with a loud ringing in my ears.” They (the artist’s preferred pronoun) thought it to be tinnitus and found that their ears had become very sensitive to sharp and loud sounds. But soon enough, it was diagnosed as hyperacusis. The note adds, “Over the next few weeks I tried going to many ENTs [ear-nose-throat doctors] and looking up the entirety of the Internet for answers. There are none. Everyone had been telling me it’s just something I would have to live with, and that I should avoid loud sounds. One ENT even told me to expect hearing loss. I was extremely afraid, but with the passing of time, I accepted my fate.”

During this period, a friend’s acoustic guitar gained Biswas’s continued attention. They say in their note, “As it were, the sound of this guitar was the only sound I could handle. I tried to make music on my laptop a few times, but the sound of electronic drums and synths would hurt my ears. But this guitar, it was okay. Soothing even.” Since their debut EP Astronot in 2014, Love and Everything Depressing became the first album that didn’t have its composition process tied to any digital audio workstation. “I didn’t even realize when I had an album’s worth of songs. All of which meant a lot to me,” Biswas adds.

While there was the occasional Disco Puppet gig that they took up, Biswas says the hyperacusis improved and they “started to get used to the constant ringing” over the past three years. “The ringing is just some background noise now, but I hope this music isn’t,” the artist adds about Love and Everything Depressing.

The 10-track album was prefaced by the release of “Speak Low,” inspired by Shakespearean plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The song’s folksy, acoustic melodies took shape after Biswas worked on music for a production of that play, which also informed the lyrics. “Taking lines of dialogue from the many works of Shakespeare, I warped them into a lullaby about the strangeness of love,” Biswas says in the note. It’s also structured like a Baul folk song would be, a cue to the artist’s Bengali identity. “Growing up in West Bengal, I’ve always been fascinated with this art form and this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with it,” they add.

While the music takes on a mellower outlook, the lyrics on Love and Everything Depressing are very much in a familiar Disco Puppet space. “Come Over” is post-apocalyptic, while the dream-folk tune “Everyone’s Ded” is macabre. Elsewhere, Biswas works in a smattering of Bengali on “Change Is Good,” driven by a measured, slow croon. There’s warped indie rock and shoegaze vibes on “Down on My Luck,” which is perhaps as noisy as it gets. “The Interested Few” and “No Job” dial up on the production, allowing for what are perhaps Disco Puppet’s most grandiose moments yet. “No Job” also addresses Biswas’s thoughts and fears as they began coming to terms with hyperacusis. “As the title suggests, Love and Everything Depressing deals with themes of yearning, love and the absurdity of growing older,” the album note says.

That’s not where the experiments stop, though, as “Slumber” brings in string arrangements and a touch of cinematic whimsy as it unfolds, and “Shondhey Teh” is romantic with Hindi, Bengali and English lyrics. “The last few tracks represent a spiritual moment that arrives as a result of this journey; a clarity that they are afraid of losing. Disco Puppet holds on to this lucidity by codifying it in song,” the note adds.

Love and Everything Depressing follows Disco Puppet’s 2021 single “Candy” and the standout 2020 EP Thoughts To Melt To, which were recorded during the pandemic. Biswas – who first thrived with experimental rock band Space Behind The Yellow Room – has released albums and EPs ever since Astronot in 2014, pushing into a mind-bending sonic space each time, whether as a drummer-producer and vocalist or now, as more of a singer-songwriter. Aranyer Dinratri released in 2019, while Princess This introduced a tumultuous sound in 2017 alongside their keyboard-centric record I’m Going Home. The year 2016 marked the release of his EP Spring, the artist’s first collection of songs put out by Bengaluru-based label Consolidate, founded by producer Rahul Giri.