Listen: Blame Adam’s Balmy, Brilliant Electronica Debut

Adam Malvi was 10 years old when he suffered a paralytic stroke. The incident left him with a lifelong struggle to deal with but it also made him wise beyond his years. Barely even a teen, he figured that life was too precious to let dreams pass.

“I was always exposed to music all through my growing years but never actually felt the essence and power of music until I was afflicted with the stroke,” says the 24-year-old Malvi, who has recently released his debut two-part EP; the three-track Samsara I and four-track Samsara II.

Realizing that people don’t really listen to full-length albums anymore, Malvi decided it was best to stagger the releases over time in short formats. “There are many, many artists [in the scene], and to stand out, releasing great quality songs on a continuous basis is needed. To achieve that continuum I decided to release the EP in a two-part series.”

The Samsara series is straight-up electronica but not one that is bereft of mellifluousness. Each track combines a strong melody in addition to the must-have addictive beats and drops. “Melody basically acts like the base of my tracks and I work around it.” “Nadah” from the first installment is testament to that: singer Tavishi Sharma weaves a haunting melodic universe over a sparse, experimental arrangement that also features Joshua Singh on the guitar (Singh also plays drums for Mumbai alt rock band Spud in the Box). German vocalist Lydia Hendrikje’s lush voice is almost therapeutic on the low-fi “Velvet Spider” (from Samsara I) and the melancholic “Future C” (from Samsara II).

Other collaborators on the records include the American saxophonist Austin Pokopec and Guwahati singer Harshita Konger on “Fire in My Eyes.” “They added some beautiful organic finesse to the songs,” says Malvi, who recorded a larger portion of Samsara I and Samsara II at Singh’s home studio and mixed and mastered the tracks at Mumbai’s Frank Gabriel Audio. “Crisp fat sounds and a warm low end was what I was looking for and they managed to surpass my expectations,” says the producer.

Malvi is already working on a follow-up record which he hopes on releasing soon. “The [third] EP is going to be wildly different from Samsara and will include more upbeat sounds,” he says. A collaboration with Mumbai electronic collective The Progressive Family is also in the pipeline.

Listen to ”˜Samsara I’ and ”˜Samsara II’ below: