Abhi Meer combines performance art & ambient comfort in ‘Screen Dream’
The ten tracks first debuted in a globally-broadcasted event during the pandemic
Mumbai-based music critic, experimental music producer and DJ Abhi Meer independently released ‘Screen Dream’ on December 12. The album consists of ten songs culled from 24 hours of live, one-take modular synthesizer recordings still in their rawest of forms — untampered and unedited from the six consecutive afternoons it took to record them.
‘Screen Dream’ came to life amidst the world’s strictest COVID-19 lockdowns, when Meer was living inside Mumbai’s Method Art Space in August 2020. The songs, now flawlessly structured within the release, made their first debut in a globally-broadcasted event at the gallery.
Offering a multilayered experience through the deeper fringes of synthesizer-based music, ‘Screen Dream’ presents an otherworldly journey for the listeners, drifting you into the void and a free-flowing state of mind.
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The release has garnered many offbeat yet positive reviews, one of which mentions it as being “perfect for washing dishes while my mind wanders off into the void”.
Abhi Meer’s productions emerge through his love for experimental hardware music, such as modular synthesizers, vintage organs, advanced electro-acoustics and mutilated field recordings. Coming full circle as a full-on creative, he’s also a content contributor to the New Delhi-based online radio community, boxout.fm.
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Meer explains how ‘Screen Dream’ is his final long-form piece of work in utilising the exalted modular synthesiser as a primary instrument. Even so, the compositions reveal his adhesion to the works of early synth pioneers and composers, including Wendy Carlos, Roland Kayn, John Cale, Terry Riley and Stockhausen.
Infusing colour and vitality into the release, the art accompanying ‘Screen Dream’ was drawn live and painted by Delhi-based artist and musician, Nayana Ria Keswani, and is also available for purchase as a 6" x 10" print.
Abhi Meer ‘Screen Dream’ is available to purchase here.
