MUMBAI – Singer-songwriter Ankur Tewari has always looked at life to inspire his music and his new album, Akela is the same. The pandemic brought him up face-to-face with loneliness and Ankur set those feelings to music, echoing his moods as they ebbed and flowed in the first year of the pandemic.

Akela – his first album since 2017 – is also be the first album on Tiger Baby Records, a label he co-founded with Bollywood directors Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti earlier this year.

“We want to tell stories through every medium at Tiger Baby Records,” say Zoya and Reema of the upcoming project, before adding, “On Akela, Ankur musically narrates a tale that is perhaps a familiar experience for all of us.”

Ankur, through Tiger Baby Records, is exclusively signed to Believe Artist Services, which will distribute and market Akela.

“Akela is pretty much a pandemic project, when we were all locked away,” says Ankur of the album. “It’s an investigative piece on relationships and dwelling on loneliness,” he adds.

“Amidst India's flourishing independent music scene, Akela stands out as a significant milestone,” says Shilpa Sharda, director, artist services and label at Believe. “With his remarkable talent and distinct creative approach, Ankur has earned a dedicated following. At Believe, we take pride in fostering strong relationships with top artists, providing unwavering support throughout their careers. It's an honour to back Ankur's artistry, and Akela undoubtedly contributes to the success of India’s independent music industry,” she adds.

Akela, the album
Akela is a musical representation of what Ankur was going through and how he felt during that period. “It’s important for me to document what I am going through in a poetic form, so that I can look back and remember more than what I can see, and see more than I can remember.”

The soundscapes for Akela flit from sombre to hopeful. The sounds are a collage of post-apocalyptic scapes through slides on Hawaiian steel guitar (‘Doobay’), dreamy falsetto vocals (‘Parwaana’) to even field recordings of birdsong (‘Hum’) and spoken word.

“Sonically I wanted to create a more ambient environment. Almost akin to the feeling of being lost in the cosmos,” he says.

Delving into a more melancholic and ambient soundgarden, Ankur builds a kaleidoscope of love, loss and dreams in Akela, resulting in an album – produced by Rohan Ramanna of Salvage Audio Collective – that showcases the artist that Ankur Tewari has come to be.

“To my own shock, Akela is quite different from the work I have created before and the fact that I gravitated towards these sounds and soundscapes.”

A deeply personal and introspective album, it felt freeing for Ankur to give into the emotions the pandemic brought out in him. “I discovered a side of myself that I was hiding somewhere. It wasn’t like it didn’t exist before. It did but probably, I was forced to confront that side of my personality. I was probably not brave or bold enough to share it earlier but it gave me an opportunity to speak about that. This album brought me closer to who and how I am as a private person.”

Akela releases on August 4 on Tiger Baby Records.