It is only rare that you see a two-piece ‘Stoner-Rock’ act, who have never played an outstation show before, creating waves across the independent music scene with their debut album.
If you are wondering what Diarchy’s debut album, Here Lost We Lie, sounds like, the band leaves you with this,
It’s all about the RIFFs and riff worship! Always obey the riff. ALWAYS!
Diarchy’s ‘Here Lost We Lie’ brings the Rock n’ Roll party with their solid combination of Perplexing guitar riffs and hard hitting drums. While musically the band stick to worshiping riffs, Bangalore-based illustrator and visual artist, Anoop Bhat, steals the show with his imperil album art work.
“Anoop’s work is so detailed. We noticed him first with his work for TVSK. We just chatted and found he has already heard some of our music. He was ever so full of ideas, and this one just hit the right spot.” says Gaurrav about discovering the illustrator and on how the collaboration worked for the band.
The Bangalore-based graphic designer manages to create a virtual image of the band’s album with a subjugate artwork while simultaneously manages to keep the idea of having a prepossessing layout intact. About the art, in Anoop’s own words “The idea for the art came from Rorschach – one of the first songs I’d heard by the band at the time we started working on this. That sort-of-hypnotic, snakey guitar melody in the beginning getting ‘attacked’ by a heavy, stomping riff few minutes into the song brought to mind images from David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II. The racy snakes of Galapagos Island from the first episode and the Alpine golden eagles from the second. It seemed to have a story, so I put the two together – each creature representing a part of the song. The riff won, so naturally the eagle had to look in charge. It was only during the second meeting with the band that I proposed making this eagle a twin-headed one, just to you know tie in with the band name and it seemed to make perfect sense. That’s pretty much how it came about.”
Having managed to catch a few eyeballs in Bangalore indie circuit since the inception back in 2015, the stoner rock duo’s 7 track debut album brings the bands versatility to life.
“There is an underlying theme with the lyrics linking the songs in an almost story like fashion. Musically, we try not to restrict ourselves too much. But overall, I would say we dabble mostly in riffs, with sprinkles of psychedelic/clean melodic passages.” While guitarist Prakash Rawat speaks about the musical complexity, drummer Gaurrav Tiwari talks about the bands idea behind the monumental lyrical style, “From innocence (Love) to drowning worries (Bulldoper), to trying to find a hero but not seeing any (Rorschach), the angst of losing all hope (Here Lost We Lie), starting to care less and just get high with friends (Joy & Sorrow), to downright alienation (Wallflower) – lyrically it is quite a narrative.”
The two-piece act from Bangalore have managed to find the perfect balance within the bands sounds, ranging between clean guitar strumming to catchy, heavy and raw guitar riffs, creating a fuller sound without limiting themselves to a single tone in the albums entirety in the absence of a bass guitarist.
“We actually did use a bass guitar during recording. Also, we sound quite full live. I doubt you’d find anything ‘missing’ when you watch us live!”
The band headed to Live Banned guitarist and Bangalore-based sound engineer, Sridhar Varadharajan’s Studio 304 to record their debut studio album, before getting the album mixed and mastered by ‘aswekeepsearching’ guitarist/vocalist, Uddipan Sarmah.
“Working with Sridhar was absolutely amazing. Sridhar, besides being extremely good at recording, is a superb musician. We were very comfortable with both him and Uddipan so that helped a lot during the whole process. There were quite a few inputs from both of them, like what to play differently during double tracking guitars, Laying down bass tracks etc.”
Diarchy’s debut album ‘Here Lost We Lie’ is now availablehere on OkListen!
Diarchy mark their Mumbai debut with their first out station show at the cities new concert arena, Summer House Café on the 23rd of March along with Pune-based post-rockers, Cat Kamikazee and Mumbai-based alternative outfit, Twisted Paradox. Event detailshere.
Deepan Dsouza