Exclusive Stream: The Multiverse Concept’s Latest Sonic Postcard ‘New York Blue’

Since 2011, guitarist Aksheya Chandar has been composing metal-leaning material as The Multiverse Concept. He says, “Over the years, I found myself expanding beyond metal to include (both listening to and writing) progressive rock, electronic music and even indie-rock/acoustic styles.”

Chugged riffs are very much still part of The Multiverse Concept’s arsenal, but by 2016’s Chasing Echoes, the guitarist-composer began to incorporate classical elements as well. After the album released, Chandar moved to New York for studies, taking a break from writing albums. He instead focused on “learning new techniques of writing and structuring music.” At the same time, the artist became more aware of the changing music consumption patterns, especially streaming platforms that popularized “genre-based, playlist-based and mood-based listening.”

He moved away from the EP and album model to create an artist radio called Postcards From Nowhere. Chandar points to American producer-guitarist Cloudkicker aka Ben Sharp’s model of writing and releasing music. “When I come up with new music, I release it. This step was important to me because I write music for the love of writing and don’t really view this as a career, kind of like Cloudkicker,” he says.

After releasing two songs – “Eternal” in June last year and “The Fun Is Gone” in December – The Multiverse Concept’s latest addition to the radio is an ethereal track called “New York Blue.” It sits on a bed of a typically prog metal riff, but grows into a lightheaded ambient track featuring violinist Shyamoli Chatterjee (who also appears on Chasing Echoes) and a sample of the New York subway prompt “Stand clear of the closing doors please.” Produced by Pune-based Shubham Gurung (from post-rock band Aswekeepsearching), Chandar says he aimed to write an ode to the city he’s lived in for the last two years. “I’m all about writing songs in commemoration of someone or something,” he says.

Once the bassist of experimental metallers Virion, Chandar called in producer-guitarist Adhiraj Singh, bassist Bob Alex and singer Aman Virdi (all from metallers Noiseware) and vocalist Gagan Gill (his bandmate in Virion and briefly part of hardcore band Scribe) to contribute to his debut EP Conversations With The Boatman (2012) and his two albums Defying Inertia (2013) and Chasing Echoes. Chandar says, “MVC’s entire model has centered on creative collaboration with up and coming artists, and sometimes that may slow down the timeline, particularly when working across time zones.” The latest song, for example, took about nine months of working remotely with Gurung.

But the next two releases from The Multiverse Concept will likely arrive sooner. An electronica song called “Dancing Bones” is complete, with the artwork in process. “The second song, ‘Fill Your Soul with Air,’ (working title) is in the final stages of vocal writing and recording,” he says.