Tarang Joseph insists that he’s a cussed man. “I do my thing, and if it doesn’t feel right, I can’t do it,” says the Bengaluru-based singer, pianist, and songwriter, with a disarming smile.
His new single, One Track Mind, a disco-funk monitor with nu-jazz components, echoes this angle: it’s about breaking free from expectations and selecting your personal path.
“I’d betrayed myself so many times by saying yes, I’ll do that when I don’t want to, it is not what my gut and heart are telling me to do,” he says. One Track Mind, he says, is a “scream from my gut for betraying myself and my heart too many times.”
Society, Tarang believes, continuously asks artists to evolve and match themselves right into a mould, an expectation he finds stultifying. “I’ve been doing time and facing retribution…for all the times I’ve lied and caused any confusion…I know I’ll be alright…but man, there’s something heavy resting on my soul,” he croons in his single. “After all these years, I’m tired of doing what I’m told…don’t waste your time because I’ve got a one-track mind.”
One Track Mind, which amassed over 16,000 listeners in lower than every week,, is one thing Tarang has been engaged on for some time. “I grew up on that kind of music. My mom loved ABBA,” he says. Early Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai additionally impressed him; the latter pioneered acid jazz, a style that blends disco, funk, and soul music, incorporating components of jazz. “I draw a lot of influence from that. “
While the melodies and lyrics are largely his, the single was co-written with his band in the old-school way. Since the band plays live weekly at ZLB23, the Kyoto speakeasy at The Leela Palace Bengaluru, “we improvise because it’s a jazz venue.” They got here up with concepts on the fly quite a bit, Tarang explains, and when an thought was “magical”, Tarang would document it on his telephone.
One Track Mind, which contains a band-style association, emerged on this method. “The first drop for this was a jam. Then I started recording because I could feel something here.”
This is the 25-year-old’s fifteenth launch; he has already put out 9 singles and an EP, he says. “I’ve been releasing music since my 11th grade, so it has been a long time. I started with electronic music, then rock music. After that, I got into R&B, soul, funk, disco thing,” says Tarang, who grew up in a home stuffed with music, began by listening to outdated Disney songs.
Then there was Billy Joel, “on every car ride to Trivandrum, a 15-odd-hour drive from Bengaluru. I know every song from his discography,” he recollects, with a smile. Apart from Joel, his father used to play quite a lot of jazz in the home, he says. Also, outdated ‘80s music in addition to “the classic rock stuff that most people’s parents listen to, like the Beatles and the Eagles. My dad is a huge fan of Jethro Tull because he plays the flute.”
His mother and father inform him that he was musically inclined at the same time as a toddler, says Tarang, who has been taking piano classes since he was 4 years outdated. “I was good at maths, so my parents put me in summer camp for it, but I didn’t like it.”
So his father brokered a discount: he may give up math camp if he agreed to attend the piano courses subsequent door, as a substitute. His piano instructor, Roopa Shetty, “taught me for 12 years, from the age of four. I owe her a lot. I would not have such a good relationship with my instrument if not for her.” The piano, as he received older, grew to become a “spiritual thing.”
Tarang and his band
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Special Arrangement
Despite Tarang writing “really bad songs” on the age of 13 or 14, his father, “a very creative guy”, inspired him proper from the beginning. Tarang even joined Taaqademy Academy, based by the Bengaluru-based rock band Thermal And A Quarter, and began his personal band round then.
The band, referred to as Fleeting Glimpse (impressed by the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb), principally performed covers of traditional rock songs earlier than venturing into authentic music, acting at numerous venues in Bengaluru.
“I don’t think I really found my creative voice and joy for it until I was in high school,” he says. Once he did, nonetheless, his music grew to become seamless and began to move. “Everything came from a place of emotion, feeling and gut. I’ve been riding that wave for a long time.”
While the band disbanded when its members went to totally different faculties, Tarang continued to write down and create music. “When I was finally ready to gig and put together another band, COVID hit.” Tarang saysthis proved to be unexpectedly fortuitous because the document producers who have been normally busy with outstanding artists have been now free. “I got to work with a good record producer, who now had the time to take a newbie like me.”
In 2024, he launched his debut EP, Liquid Sunshine, “the first project that was cohesive…the first time I had a sound that was uniquely mine,” says Tarang, including that the EP was named one of many Best EPs of 2024 by The Indian Music Diaries. Other issues he’s happy with embrace being featured on BBC UK and Spotify’s Indian Indie English, enjoying at festivals like Echoes of Earth and sharing phases with Peter Cat Recording Co., The F16S, Dot, Till Apes, and Mali. Next on his checklist, he says, is his sophomore EP, starting with ‘One Track Mind’. “We are also geared up to begin our India tour, which will happen in two legs, in November and February.”
