Hear Mumbai Rock Artist February 31st’s Surging New EP ‘Fuzzbox’
Producer-guitarist Lakshman Parsuram talks about how he discovered his love for effect pedals that helped create a sprawling, post-rock and shoegaze-informed sound
Mumbai-based Lakshman Parsuram aka February 31st. Photo: Pia Alize Hazarika
In early 2020, composer, producer and guitarist Lakshman Parsuram attended a crowdfunded festival Control ALT Delete and found a surprising development among bands playing there. “It was so nice to see so many people using pedals and I fell in love with pedalboards again,” he says.
This led to his project February 31st’s 2020 EP From A Room but also formed the building blocks for his latest EP Fuzzbox, which released in November and was entirely a pandemic project. “I had a lot of time to sit and mess around with ideas and tones,” Parsuram says. While there was a bit of commercial production work taking up his time, he spent January to September this year chipping away at ideas that ranged from post-rock to shoegaze to a bit of alt-rock.
The result is a hazy yet emotive and urgent collection of sounds, fed by “wall of sound guitars” that Parsuram says he loves. The song “Mine To Keep” was centered around a fuzzy riff that he soon realized was the glue that held the five tracks together. Lyrically, though, he was writing about relationship experiences but also “incorporating things I’ve seen with friends.” He adds, “I was trying not to be too personal about things.”
Among the surprises that Parsuram springs on listeners within the first few minutes of Fuzzbox — which kicks off with “In Sin” — is his vocals. “It was a big first for me. I didn’t think I’d be singing,” he states. As it turns out, he added rough vocal ideas (starting with the song “Zerox”) and began working more on sung melodies. Then came the lyrics. Between the 2014 debut EP Of Dusk and Dawn and a single with Ink of Bard called “Float” in 2019, it had been a long time since he’d sung or even written lyrics. “It was the most structured thing I did,” Parsuram says of taking on writing duties.
Beyond the release of Fuzzbox, the artist is keen on February 31st live as well as finishing up the next Ink of Bard EP. “Anokha [Kumar, singer-songwriter] and I ended up writing a few songs before the pandemic and did a bunch of rough vocals at the time. I’m intrigued about the live thing, though. The last time I played live was in 2014. Let’s see how that goes,” Parsuram says.
Stream/buy ‘Fuzzbox’ below. Hear on more platforms here.
