Stream Mumbai vocalist Siddharth Basrur’s new project Last Remaining Light’s Latest Single

Siddharth Basrur at Blue Frog. Photo: Monisha Ajgaonkar

It’s fair to say that Siddharth Basrur has come a long way since his days as singer for post-hardcore band Goddess Gagged. The Mumbai-based musician has been constantly honing his songwriting and guitar-playing skills over the past few years with projects like his solo music, post-rock group The Library with guitarist Vishal J. Singh, and more recently, alternative rock band Last Remaining Light.

Formed in early 2014 with guitarist Anurag Shanker, bassist Adil Kurwa and former drummer Vaibhav Waviker (whose place has now been taken by The Koniac Net’s Karun Kannampilly), the group are now debuting their new single titled “Fire Drill Gone Wild” from their self-titled debut LP Last Remaining Light. The band has also revealed the album cover artwork by Paul Thomas, whose work includes designs for Marvel’s X-Men series and episodes of Disney’s Legends of the Ring of Fire TV series.

The artwork for Last Remaining Light’s debut Album. Credit: Paul Thomas

A great mix of energetic guitar riffs and mellow soundscapes, “Fire Drill Gone Wild” was the band’s best choice for a single that could showcase the entire range of the band. Says Basrur, “The album has some mellow songs as well as some heavy songs in it, and we felt that this single best represented that duality. Plus, it just has a nice build-up to it.”

The band previously revealed a song titled “Conclusions” from the new album on February, 2015, which was written by Basrur back in 2010. Looking back, he could definitely see an evolution in his guitar-playing from that song to “Fire Drill Gone Wild”. Recalls Basrur, “I wrote ‘Conclusions’ on an acoustic guitar, which was how I was composing all my songs back then. I practised my guitar-playing really, really hard over the past few years, after which I wrote this single and the album entirely on an electric guitar. There was definitely an edgier writing style behind it.”

However, there is no central theme binding Last Remaining Light, and Basrur says that he wants to leave songs completely up to the listener’s interpretation. He gave Thomas the same creative freedom while hiring him to design the album’s cover artwork. Adds Basrur, “The cover was completely his idea. We just gave him the name of our band and the songs, and just let him have at it.” Whatever the process, the result is definitely an evocative piece of artwork, featuring a lighthouse floating in mid-air and breaking apart from below.

The new album is currently being mastered by engineer Steve Nagasaki at Nagasaki Sound studio in Las Vegas, U.S.A. The band hopes to release it in the next couple of months, with a full tour later on in 2015 to support its launch.

Stream and download “Fire Drill Gone Wild” below