Hear Mumbai Composer Ashwin Shriyan’s Glittering Hindi Pop Turn on ‘Baalama’

Although bassist, guitarist (and most recently, pianist) Ashwin Shriyan has his roots in metal, he’s spent recent years diving into Hindi pop and commercial music as a composer. The first glimpse of that came in 2020, when he teamed up with guitarist Nishith Hegde for “Yeh Pal,” as part of their duo Ashwin-Nishith.  

Now, Shriyan has gone fully solo as a pop composer, releasing his debut single “Baalama,” featuring singer, engineer and producer Aseem, guitarist-producer Daniel Rego and drummer Rahul Hariharan. The lofty Hindi song stemmed from a piano idea that came to Shriyan last year. “I’d started taking piano lessons online last year, and I found it to be a really good instrument to write music,” he says.  

At the time of writing the song, Shriyan had the word ‘baalama’ in mind, which roughly translates to ‘beloved’ in Hindi. He sent the song over to Aseem, the Pune-based singer-songwriter and producer. “He’s a friend and usually there are a set of guys that you can send music to for their thoughts. Aseem loved the song and said he’d sing on it,” Shriyan says. Shriyan felt he could’ve written guitars for the song – which features lyrics written by singer-songwriter Anurag Mishra – but once again passed it on to another musician friend, Mumbai-based Rego (Shriyan’s former bandmate in extreme metallers Demonic Resurrection).  

Shriyan says he didn’t want to come up with a guitar idea and reached out to Rego for a “fresh perspective” on the song. In a true testament to working with seasoned pro musicians, the collaborative processes for “Baalama” ran smooth as ever. “I think it’s one of the first times that Daniel has played on one of my songs, he just nailed it in one take. Nothing had to be changed and I ended up using everything,” he says. In the meantime, Aseem convinced Shriyan to add live drums to the track, leading the composer to call on Hariharan (from metallers Bhayanak Maut) to record at a jam pad in Ghansoli. Shriyan says, “I got the people who were apt for the song. I just told them, ‘If you like the song, please play on it.’”  

The urge to write Hindi pop music started with “Yeh Pal” with Ashwin-Nishith, but Shriyan says it was in January 2019 that he and a couple of composer friends sat down with the goal to write “commercial, catchy songs.” He says, “In that process, I found what’s appealing to me.”  

Three years on, the composer says he has an album’s worth of songs in the pop-rock and electronic space. “Baalama” – which released exclusively on Apple Music first and is now on all streaming platforms – has opened up some avenues for Shriyan, who says he might work with labels and platforms for future releases. “It might be two or three months before I release another song,” he adds.  

Listen to “Baalama” below. Stream on more platforms here.