—অথবা —

3 min readAug 17, 2020

during the #quarantine #2020

i recorded some songs i thought were easy listening and light. eventually, guess the quarantine got to me. here they are: https://soundcloud.com/othoba

last song from compilation Dhosh

অথবা in #bengali means OR. It represents a choice.

i wont go into the background of my love of symbolism in which or is depicted as ⊕ To me it’s both life/death, suffering/joy, pain/relief, within/without — other, else or Not Me.

the songs in this series were recorded in my bedroom with no equipment but a laptop and plenty of cigarettes. the songs were gathered from the fragments of my memory and lost bits of personal diaries i had kept from my high school years, now just jumbled ink in the yellowed pages of my files.

i rewrote the songs and found samples, pieces of music and beats from soundcloud.com

the songs are free to use -they’re an expression of my past and present moods. i was trying out #experimental vocal lines in #Bangla

i usually offer no explanation to song meanings because i believe music transcends meaning sometimes.

but most of the songs are pretty literal in subject matter, and cover themes such as heartbreak, loneliness, social unrest, suicide and identity-crisis. they also break out in parts of harmonious joy and melody in between the dark and dreary synth beats. i apologize for the depressive tones, but im not my meds, and at least I can feel. i barely wrote these songs down, they were mostly me humming into my phone, sometimes descending into unintelligible muttering or incohert ramblings. they are often without words/lyrics and i cant remember what I meant to say at that point. I guess thats the price you pay for creating impromptu art.

the first track here is actually the first one i made and is about my hometown growing up in #Dhaka, #Bangladesh

7 days in the life

using work to avoid thinking about my #problems

how #Tagore’s sister-in-law felt

don’t know

The video creator for this song was made by my niece #Zahra

the ramblings of a night crawler

a song about the heinous killing of #BUET student Abrar dedicated to all those who fight for the freedom to speak their mind

haunted x memories

#addiction tarpit — 2005 this is composed with Adnan, guitarist of #Delude my high school band

this is his version

a song about experiencing sudden loss

the #atheist dilemma

wasteful habits, regrets and decaying friendships

you are a reflection of everyone you’ve loved

#millenials who are #bangladeshi but influenced by popular #culture often seem to have #identitycrises

i plan to eventually record some version of these songs and strip away the rest to whatever is useful in production at that time. also creating an #instagram campaign for #albumart from people who listened to my tracks and loves the #demonfilter on #snapchat or #IG