Green Park on Making Their Wildly Indie Album ‘Newly Aged’

It’s the end of New Delhi act Green Park’s tour promoting their debut album Newly Aged, and they’re playing a “homecoming” gig at The Piano Man in Gurugram on May 25th.

Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Rishabh Bhan Singh says, “We also have a winter tour in the pipeline, and hopefully some festivals along the way. For now, all we can think about is going home to our cats, Papita and Keenu, and playing music together in a room.”

Green Park came together in December 2021 after meeting at a house party, with vocalist, songwriter, guitarist Arpan Kumar and bassist Sidharth Gupta rounding out the lineup. The 11-track Newly Aged is a trippy, pastiche-like indie experimental album, one that follows their 2022 EP All My Pictures Have Grown Smiles. Influenced by the likes of the Beatles and The Beach Boys, the band says in a joint response to an email interview that they’ve also carried forward their musical idols’ penchant for collaboration on Newly Aged.

To that end, American artist William Schade – a friend of Singh’s – “transformed the sound of the album completely” with tenor saxophone across several tracks. Singer-songwriter Amartya Ghosh also makes an appearance across tracks, including the enchanting lovesick song “The Bug.” The band counts Ghosh as “someone who played a very important role in the band for a couple of years and wrote some of these songs with us.”

If there’s one unmistakable influence from within Indian independent music for Green Park, it’s fellow New Delhi-origin act Peter Cat Recording Co. Multi-instrumentalist Kartik Pillai also appears on “Dulcet Tones” from the album. There’s a sway and cacophony alike that roars just like PCRC would and Green Park does hold the band’s album Bismillah in high regard. Among the names thanked in their album notes are Chennai indie act The F16s. Green Park chime in collectively to call The F16s as “the nicest, kindest people in the music scene.”  

Beyond simply saying Green Park is recommended if you like PCRC and The F16s, Newly Aged offers plenty of originality and does well to break new ground in Indian independent music as well. The dreamy glitz of “I Met Someone” switches up the pace a few times while retaining its pop flair. “Dulcet Tones” returns to that space towards the middle of the album, but goes further and brings in Indian classical elements, including sitar and sarod by Sashank Navaladi and additional vocals from fusion band Pakshee’s Kunwar Tanishque Jarial. Gupta says about the song, “Working with [Navaladi] was great, and he elevated the song to heights that we had never dreamt of.”

Then there’s the title track, which brings a cosmic guitar solo followed by saxophone from Schade that lifts the album into another dimension. There are shorter tracks like “Yahan-Wahan,” which Kumar counts as his favorite along with “Coast” in terms of telling a story. The vocalist, songwriter and guitarist says, “[They] two songs that explore a crisis of identity as English-speaking Indians. In a post-colonial India, this seems to be a common experience for many young folk, so it’s been an interesting topic to talk about. ‘Coast’ explores a feeling of drifting between seas/coasts of the US and India, while ‘Yahan-Wahan’ uses sampling techniques to transport the listener between jittery eastern and western sonic spaces.”

Elsewhere, the reverb splashes on “Soft Toys” and lush vocal layers on “Take What You Can Get” give off a meticulous bent to Green Park’s composing and production choices, making Newly Aged a journey like few others you’ll hear this year.

The response certainly seems to align itself that way. Kumar says it’s been “overwhelming” to see people request specific songs “in places where we thought we had no fans” and getting heartfelt (and sometimes funny) declarations of fandom in their DMs. “Our favorite memory is probably from the Gurgaon show when we opened for The F16s—the crowd knew our songs inside out and did not stop screaming song requests in between each song. We have never felt happier on stage,” he adds.

From the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre to house concerts in Pune and Madh Island and club venues as well, Green Park say they “wanted more dynamism” as they went along performing. With the Gurugram show bringing this run of shows to an end, Gupta calls it a long trip that they feel bittersweet about bringing to an end. Singh adds, “We’ve come to understand our band and music a lot better over the past month, and we are super excited about all the other shows we will be doing this year with this experience under our belt.”