Hear Ricky Vasan’s Unfiltered Debut EP ‘Weekend Smile’

It was only last year after finishing up high school that Dehradun-bred Ricky Vasan picked up a guitar. After taking guitar lessons and reigning in inspiration from the likes of Irish musician Hozier and American rockers Pearl Jam, the singer-songwriter is now out with his debut five-track EP titled Weekend Smile. “I picked up the guitar and there was this natural connection of sorts,” says Vasan.

When Vasan’s guitar tutor began urging him to write songs, the musician initially felt that the task was too daunting to go ahead with. “I thought that it just wasn’t my thing but there is something cathartic about writing these words that might not seem like they mean anything but to me they mean everything,” he says.

Currently pursuing a course in painting and sculpture in Boston, Vasan wrote all the songs on Weekend Smile Stateside. Although the record falls shy of sheer quality, the simplicity in the songs lends for a double-take. The record falls somewhere in between Nineties grunge and slow-burning tracks in the vein of American ambient pop outfit Cigarettes After Sex. The record opens with the jangly title track before moving to the shoegaze offering “One Night.” Mid record songs include the quaint “Run to You” and dreamy “Don’t Know” while the EP closes with the acoustic plucking of “Her Song.”

Vasan says, “Most of these songs consist of thoughts that I wouldn’t be able to share in a conversational scenario but writing these thoughts in an almost poetic context made them easier and somewhat therapeutic for me.” The musician recorded the tracks at his guitar tutor’s studio in Dehradun over his winter break and even mixed them himself. He says, “It took a while because it was my first time working with this software so I had to experiment a lot before I reached a point where I was comfortable with the sound.”

Due to COVID-19, Vasan is now back in Dehradun keeping busy writing music, painting and even catching up with his online assignments. The musician is putting in the hours on a folk and jazz sound for his full-length release that he hopes to start working on soon. “Hopefully all this experimentation will turn out to be fruitful,” he says.

Stream ‘Weekend Smile’ below: