Watch: Rainburn’s Exuberant New Music Video ‘Merchant of Dreams’

What do musicians have in common with the most influential figures in history? For Bengaluru prog band Rainburn, they both sell dreams. That’s pretty much the premise to both, the music video and the vibrant new single “Merchant of Dreams.”

Vocalist-guitarist Vats Iyengar explains, “The idea is that a musician essentially sells dreams to an audience, that’s the main attraction he holds for them.” For the video, the band originally intended to dress up as multiple historical figures such as Chanakya, Albert Einstein or Neil Armstrong through the course of the video. “[And] eventually turn into ourselves, suggesting we’re the spiritual descendants of all these influential people. Quite pompous, really, but it’s our first music video and I had to figure out a way to have everyone show their faces in it at some point, so our moms could proudly show the video to neighborhood aunties,” Iyengar jokes. Instead, they enlisted sketch artist Nandan Kulkarni to draw these figures, between shots of the band performing the song.

Following a similar dreamy, melodic and classic prog-leaning influence of their debut 2014 EP Canvas of Silence, “Merchant of Dreams” was launched yesterday at Blue Frog in Bengaluru. Following their run of shows as part of the Progworks on Wheels in 2016, the band has been aiming to keep as active as possible, including a live video of another unreleased song, “Elusive Light.”

Iyengar says work is ongoing for a full-length album, due in January next year. They’ve set a release date for the as-yet-untitled 10-track album for January 12th, more for putting “beautiful, debilitating pressure on all of us,” as the frontman half-jokes. The lyrics “ten tales of beauty and joy” in “Merchant of Dreams” is a hint about the album concept, but Iyengar won’t give much more away just yet. He adds, “A couple of months of writing, a couple of months of recording and post-production and we’ll be able to hit the ground running.”