Frizzell D’Souza | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
How do you tell your friend that you love them without sending the wrong message? If this is a head-scratcher, writing songs about love and friendship is no easy task.
And yet, that was the brief given to singer-songwriter Frizzell D’Souza by record label Kappa Originals. “Last year they approached me for a five-song EP because I had worked with them on a song before,” says Frizzell, adding, “They wanted happy, upbeat compositions.”
Frizzell says she loved the idea of capturing a love that wasn’t romantic, which led her to look at her own relationships. As a result, “all the songs that are part of it are amazing.” in my oddity Explore themes of love and friendship and love for your family.”
The composer says that, obviously, it took longer to understand the concept than to compose the music and lyrics. “It was challenging and fun. The song ‘Long to Be’ is about companionship, and about how one wants to be a dependable friend. Co-dependency between two people is platonic. It is quite difficult to explain it in a loving way – it was quite a difficult task to express it without making it romantic.”
Frizzell said the biggest story behind this is that in my oddity‘SThe compositions are accompanied by ‘Mum’s Lullaby’. During the pandemic, both her parents and her elder sister who is in the healthcare sector were deployed on Covid duty, while Frizzell was at home, logged in for her online classes. “Once my mother came home, she sat both my sister and me down, and told us about the family documents we might need in any situation.”
Frizzell says this was when the gravity of the situation really hit her. “As a family, we’re not very emotional or expressive, so saying ‘I love you’ wasn’t easy. ‘Mum’s Lullaby’ is about putting that underlying feeling into a song.”
Frizzell D’Souza | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The musician says ‘Paintbrush in the Ground’ is about self-love, while ‘Symmetrize’ is a personal story about how he went from studying architecture to a career in music, and how it was different from the stable corporate life he had originally imagined. “The last line of the song is ‘I look best in my asymmetry’.”
in my oddity Frizzell’s distinctive sound is an “evolution” from bluesy acoustics to electronica. He was assisted in this by Aadarsh Subramaniam, who mixed his classical guitar sounds with electronica. Nikhil Vasudevan provided percussion, while Anirudh Ravi on acoustic guitar and Surya Kalyanaraman on bass.
in my oddity Available on all streaming platforms.
Published – September 10, 2024 08:47 PM IST
