Eashwar Subramanian Makes Music for Solitude on ‘Frozen Timescapes’

Traversing canyons of sound, Bengaluru-based producer Eashwar Subramanian’s new album Frozen Timescapes gently and sparklingly settles into the space of easy listening music while staying true to his Indian classical roots. Released in December 2021, the eight-track album was six months in the making, with Subramanian often using piano melodies as the central sonic motif.

The musician, who previously explored fusion ambient on his 2021 EP Arctic Bloom, says he wanted to give listeners “a soundtrack to ease into, during this Covid time warp.” A litmus test for Frozen Timescapes was often whether listening to it would put Subramanian in an easy state of mind. Subtitled as an “ambient new age music” record, Subramanian incorporates influences of Indian and Western classical, plus cinematic score-like flourishes (“Wind in the Woods,” “Silent Tempest”) and appropriately somber, sometimes even urgent palettes, like on “Dark Times.”

Ask the producer why he prefers to categorize Frozen Timescapes as new age music and he talks about how genres like ambient music have become “more democratic in recent times.” Subramanian says, “More artists in the ambient genre are looking at creating minimalist pieces of music with a lot of space in the tracks.” It’s here that he compares the present subtleness in new age music compared to the “grandiose track “ of new age artists from the late Nineties and 2000s like Enya or Yanni.

For his part, Subramanian is a storyteller through moods on the album, providing a sonic representation of feelings like anticipation (“Rainbows of Joy”), tender happiness (“Homecoming”) and ultimately, overwhelming passion (“Universal Love”). There’s also “Jazz on the Rocks,” the third track on Frozen Timescapes which puts together jazz chords and raagas, in sublime fashion. He says of the track, “I think the best testimony to that came from a friend who played it at his house party and they kind of relaxed to this new idea playing in the speakers which kind of blended two seemingly different genres.”

He even goes on to describe his experiments on “Rainbows of Joy” to have resulted in a “nice sonic pudding.” That sort of statement only adds to the ways we can enjoy ambient music. The producer has plenty more in the works: a couple of “short EPs” and licensing deals that follow working with platforms like Hoopr and music label Pagal Haina.

Listen to ‘Frozen Timescapes’ below.