Hello there. It’s been a minute, for which a certain someone entrusted with the task of posting Episode Six of Day Is Night Diaries in September is solely to blame. We won’t say who dropped the ball, but if you’d like a hint, the culprit is one of two members of the indie rock duo Starcracker (preferred pronouns: she/her).
Anyhow, better late than never and all that jazz. Or should we say rock? For that is the genre we —
and — will be talking about most in Episode Six. You’ll hear how we arrived at “The Fold,” the fifth track on Starcracker’s album Day Is Night, a song that commemorates a strange/dystopian (maybe) first date and somehow also seamlessly braids together the Muslim adhān/azan (call to prayer), driving rock guitars and drums, sound samples/loops evoking the grittiness of east London streets, and a sudden whiff of Carnatic (south Indian classical) melody at the close.“The Fold” might be our only banger, and deserves a special mention just on that count, but we also talk through how it shares sonic affinities with the rest of the tracks in terms of production. Deceptively simple and straightforward, it’s the dark horse on the record, as we hope you’ll come to see. And if you listen till the end, you’ll notice we arrive at our core philosophy/approach as musicians as we decode our process for this track, which seems fitting.
As always, if you’d like to check out the song before you listen to the episode, the link’s immediately below:
If you’re at all curious, here’s the photograph taken by Akhila in London on a fine summer evening in 2023 that directly inspired the song.
And, for good measure, here’s Akhila carousing at the same establishment in Walthamstow with her sibling, Abhinav, on the first day of her visit. He’s a financial journalist (and budding novelist), which might have led to her writing the first two lines of the chorus (“Don’t trade in unforeseen futures, she says/ Merchants of dreams never highlight the flaws”)
Another latent influence on the song, discovered in hindsight, is Rosmarie Waldrop’s profoundly stirring and decidedly enigmatic prose poem “Conversation 9: On Varieties of Oblivion,” which you can read here.
Other musical artists/acts referenced, glancingly or otherwise, in Episode Six include:
Alanis Morissette (remember when she burst on the scene? The drama…)
Blur (we love this iconic music video for “To the End,” a tribute to the 1961 French new wave classic Last Year in Marienbad)
Laura Marling (drop everything you’re doing and listen to “Patterns” now)
The Japanese House (tell us you’re not utterly enchanted and uplifted by Amber Bain’s voice in “Sad to Breathe”)
The White Stripes (it had to be “Seven Nation Army,” yes, if you’re thinking Meg White drums?)
To hear more about her experience of going to the Blur reunion concert at Wembley with Abhinav, check out Akhila’s column in Rolling Stone magazine’s India edition, published August 5, 2023.
An announcement of sorts: this will be the last you’ll hear from us in a while on the podcast. We’ve had a lot of fun reconstructing our creative process and musical journey for ourselves and anyone who cares to listen, and are game to do it again when the occasion arises. But we must now crawl into our respective caves in the attempt to write new material, something that requires a bit of distance from the record that went before. We need to clear our heads, in other words.
So it’s bye for now, and time for us to make some noise far from the madding crowd. But never fear. We’ll be back!
PS. If you liked what you heard on the podcast and want more, feel free to check out the other five episodes of Day Is Night Diaries. In Episode Five, we contemplate “Kintsugi,” a song inspired by the ancient Japanese art of ceramic repair. Episode Four tells the story of “Bismuth,” our tribute to neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933-2015). Episode Three unpacks “Stuck Record,” the final song on the album, consequently the deepest cut. Episode Two takes us to “Hello Lenore,” a song haunted by Edgar Allan Poe and friends. Episode One features "Question," the opening track on Day Is Night, with which, arguably, we found our sound.
Day Is Night Diaries is Starcracker’s attempt to document how we work as an indie rock duo across continents, as much for ourselves as anyone else. If you're a fellow creativity/process geek, performer/writer, or long-suffering friend/family member related to either of us, do subscribe, if willing, for free.
Happy listening!
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