Listen: Nikhita’s Percussive Acoustic Track ‘For Now’

When Mumbai-based vocalist Nikhita performed her bluesy song “Humshakal” on comedian Abish Mathew’s talk show Son Of Abish earlier this year, she proved to us that there is more to her artistry than being a Bollywood playback singer. Now, the musician is taking that one step further by releasing her material independently starting off with the honeyed “For Now.”

Nikhita tells us that she’s been writing songs since she was in high school and college. “I wanted to put those songs together,” she says. The singer adds, “The thought behind it was basically that I’ve compiled a lot of songs that I wrote prior to singing professionally.” Although the vocalist has written new material lately, she felt that releasing her music chronologically made more sense because she’s grown as an artist over the years. “I wanted to get the songs out of my system,” she says.

“For Now” is a smooth percussive acoustic track which features some stellar production work, splendid guitar parts as well as Nikhita’s harmonious vocals. Handling guitar duties on the song is New Delhi musician Dhruv Visvanath. Ask Nikhita how that collaboration came about and she says, “We met a bunch of times on and off at festivals so we’re friends from before. I had a very percussive guitar playing in mind already when I’d written the song. When I started working on this again he’s the only guy that came to my mind. It was quite organic; I messaged him and said, ‘When are you coming down to Bombay and he said he was in Bombay for a few days.’ So I got hold of him immediately.”

Next, Nikhita is dropping a music video for “For Now” soon followed by a new single. The musician also tells us that an EP titled Closure is in the works which will be out next month. On the live front, the musician is also plotting a tour to support the record. She says, “I’m taking it one step at a time, more than anything I just want to put out music starting with this album and then moving on to the kind of stuff that I’ve written now.”

Listen to “For Now” below and click here to stream the song on Spotify.