Mehr Delivers Mesmeric 9-Track Record ‘songs i wrote on the bathroom floor’

After we last spoke to New Delhi singer-songwriter Mehr Khurmi – who goes by her first name – for her 2021 single “I’ll Find You,” she was faced with a peculiar instance of tragicomedy. The mixing engineer Mehr was working with for her just-released nine-track record songs i wrote on the bathroom floor lost the master files for all the songs. She says, “I had to go through them all again – this time mixing them by myself.” That process also led the singer-songwriter to revisit production on the songs. She says, “Mixing my own songs also gave me a lot of control over the story that I wanted to be heard through the production.”  

songs i wrote on the bathroom floor has been in the works for about four years and the record’s title isn’t a fictitious one. Mehr tells us, “I went through this phase where every time I would write a song, I would find myself on the bathroom floor. It didn’t matter if I was frustrated, happy, sad, or relieved; I would sit there on the same spot and write it, and I associated these emotions with colors.” 

The singer-songwriter adds, “Some songs felt red, some blue, some green, and so on. And although hundreds have been written for these colours in the course of these four years, I picked nine which would effortlessly narrate the story and journey of the EP.” 

There is an array of soundscapes across the record, while the glue that holds it all together is Mehr’s distinct vocals. “The lyrics are really honest. You can feel the emotions through the words, which I realised while singing these songs live during one of my acoustic sessions,” she says. The artist also used colors as part of her songwriting process. “If I have a song written when I felt like I was burning red, I made sure that when I produced the song, I put little elements into the song to represent the same. It led to me exploring the different instruments and sounds I could hear around me to create that ambience and imprint where red can be felt when heard, to recreate the memory sonically,” she says. While Mehr mixed the tracks herself, she called upon her friend Joe Welch to master the record.  

Looking ahead, the artist has already planned for a follow-up record. “The process has already started, and the songs have been written. Now, I just have to build its story and explore its production,” Mehr says. 

Steam ‘songs i wrote on the bathroom floor’ on Spotify below and on other platforms.