Sanaya Ardeshir, aka Sundunes, one of the country’s most sought-after indie musicians, received truckloads of appreciation for her mesmerizing performance at Lollapalooza earlier this year. Her impeccable career chart and the kind of momentum she has had is almost inimitable. With over five critically acclaimed EPs, you can tell she’s on her way to more things and fans can’t wait for that.
In an exclusive interaction with NW18, Sanaya talked about her decision to change the kind of work she used to do, her dreams for the country’s indie music scene, her exciting future plans and much more.
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You can remember very well from your absolute jazz-heavy and key-playing days with extremely popular bands like STR and Resonance. What prompted you to change the direction of your sound?
I think there’s a natural kind of rhythm and progression in a creative practice over time. It tends to evolve and expand and shape and I also think there’s a big part of reacting to the world around you as an artist. Absolutely, many direction changes in my practices have come from technology. If there was new technology that allowed me to do certain things, it would change the way I used it, and it would change the way I wrote sounds, wrote songs.
Do you somehow feel that your background in live music has left you better equipped and in control of the electronic live-act space you are now associated with?
I definitely feel that I grew up in bands as a player and a musical thinker, and that has informed my process in the same way that anyone you know with people who are in music pedagogy or maybe have a different tradition. like a Karnataka. Whatever you did your first induction with will feed the output over time.
So I definitely think it was like they weren’t jamming bands and then rock bands and then jazz bands and funk and stuff. In fact, I think in many ways I’m really bad at integrating everything I’ve got for a while. Towards perhaps a stylistic or a genre boundary that I foresee in the future. So it would be great if all the influences intertwined and then erupted as new music.
You’ve talked about time and time again that workflow on a laptop and composing on a piano are two very different feelings. Can you explain that in more detail, please?
This is definitely very different because you get visual feedback from producing on a laptop and what that means in terms of capturing things in place, capturing things on a grid, or even just sort of, you know, if once it’s in your DAW, it’s a bit harder to consider ideas cheap because you’ve already entered them. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like writing on the piano is much more fleeting. It’s much more in the moment.
There is no guarantee that I will remember in the same way what I have played or replayed. Especially when it’s like noodling and dying things and there’s a physical response because it’s a mechanical instrument, there’s very little physical feedback. You know, pressing down wooden things that have a reaction and cause a metal thing to strike a string. So like that. That relationship between note and hammer and string is so palpable, it just creates a whole different embodied process that I really love.
I can’t write all my music on a piano though, because sometimes I try to write something that’s housey and I need, you know, synthesizers and I want the feel of knobs and faders. Instead as a tactile surface, but they are both. I would highly recommend both. Both approaches.
If you had to explain to someone what kind of music you make, how would you describe it?
It would take me a long time to describe it. Um, more recently I used the word emotional a lot. But I guess I thought, I’m trying to make emotional music now. Either you know that’s kind of for you to interpret or that’s technically emotional it’s a really broad word and it encompasses so many things but more recently I think I’d say I’m trying, through music , embodied experiences.
I don’t know if I’ve fully worked out what that means myself, but the words that come out are integrated and relational. Tactile, but also femoral. Oh, I don’t know dude. Music is magical. It is very difficult to put it into words. Language falls short and I think that’s why we lean towards music.
How have you evolved as a musician since you first released your music and started playing in front of an audience?
I hope I’ve evolved. I hope I’ve grown a little bit more mature and a little bit more self-esteem and smarter in a way you know it’s hard I think as a space to be a source of income and to be a stable umbrella for the work you do. And I am very grateful to have lived in it for a long time. And finally, I feel like I’m just getting started. Don’t know. I just feel like I’m at the beginning again, so.
What are some of the changes you’ve seen in the indie music scene in the country in recent years?
Well after the pandemic I feel like I don’t see a return to the way things were but a whole new frontier new almost like a new culture has blossomed and there’s a lot more volume but there’s also a bit more of an attitude of support and room for expansion and i see expansion i really mean development like developing practice more infrastructure more you know artists will only be able to outdo themselves if they’re in a space or opportunity or set of circumstances that makes them can expand on what they did before.
And I think that’s starting to happen. I think it’s a very interesting time. I’m really looking forward to the arrival of mixed reality performance and I don’t think enough is happening, but there’s a lot in the crossover between installation art and live performance and live electronic music. It has a special house at that crossroads, it’s exciting
You perform at Sauce, what can fans expect from your set?
They can expect surprises, they can expect good humor. They can expect a release of serotonin and endorphins. And actually, I don’t know, maybe they shouldn’t expect anything because there’s a lot of new music, previously unreleased music that’s going to be performed. So it’s kind of like these shows are a one-off, things like this aren’t going to happen again.
What’s in front of you? What else do we see coming our way from you?
Two fully finished albums with music that I’m very proud of. I wanted to say nice albums, but that’s a bit of a pat on the back. Two albums that I’m eager to release and I’m about to release them in the pipeline. A lot more music and a little more attention to things that are new to us. New technologies, machine learning, spatial audio. I know this isn’t essentially new, but to extend stage skills and performance so that those technologies are applied in a performance space is something I hope to embody as a live performing act in the future.
What is your big hope and dream for the indie music space in India?
In a sense, my hope is on the intersection of idealism and a world of esoteric things. I really believe in the creative process and approach for a modality for everything from healing to tolerance, broadening the cerebral horizon. But I also think there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of landscape equitable accessibility.
We don’t do much in our local venues to address disability. There’s quite a bit happening right now to address marginalized communities and create more inclusive spaces because that’s essentially what music does because I really feel like music has the power to facilitate those spaces and I hope my room a metaphorical space for a stronger future.
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