Armeen Musa: "Bangla Rock Music" Cover Story

 

For the foremost time, Bangla Rock Music brings you a story of one, popularly known as Armeen Musa. Armeen Musa is a singer-songwriter from Bangladesh, currently studying at Berklee College of Music. She let the cat out of the bag around her latest album "Finding Fall" and other important matters for new musicians.So, here it is: 

1. Tell us something about “Finding Fall”.

Armeen Musa: I have always loved the sound of Nylon string guitar, and when I met Zak and we jammed, our two worlds and sounds seemed to fall into place. “Finding Fall” is about discovering each other's music.

2. What were you influenced by while recording the current album "Finding Fall"?

Armeen Musa: We don't have one single influence, but we did want to make an acoustic album that wasn't loud, but more soothing. We both enjoy that sound ourselves and hadn't previously made anything with jazz and acoustic sounds

3. What is the potential effort for this album?

Armeen Musa: We hope to reach out to all kinds of listeners as we have jazz, Bangla folk, reggae and acoustic sounds. 

4. What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?

Armeen Musa: I recently started writing English lyrics in more soul/jazz genres in comparison to the singer-songwriter vibe I had before. I'm working on honing those skills right now.

5. What are you up to right now? (Current or upcoming releases, tours, top-secret projects)

Armeen Musa: Right now we are touring to promote Finding Fall, mainly in Massachusetts (although we had a gig in Ohio.) The top secret news is I will start recording my English album from this month. My first single will be released in April or May. I'm very nervous and excited to try this new side of myself.

6. Five points for the music lovers of now days, that would help them build their knowledge/taste/ideas for music.

Armeen Musa:   1. Listen to classical music: Indian Classical and Western both are the deep roots of much of our music

2. Try to learn 4 new songs a month, by playing/analyzing/memorizing them. It will develop your own style the more you learn other styles.

3. Revisit your old songs again and again, the first draft can always be improved

4. Go to live concerts, both as audience and musician, it will build your ears

5. Listen to full albums from beginning to end to understand an artist ways.

7. How it feels about selling music online and how it feels about illegal music downloads?

Armeen Musa: Mushroom Entertainment (the company I run with Rousseau Mannan and Manim Mahmud) was formed to ensure that the legal options are available for online downloading. The piracy websites have really hampered the music industry, many musicians don't want to make albums anymore or promote them, as they get very little return from them. We hope that having online stores and legal free streaming (meradio,fm, youtube, spotify) will help give back to the artist all the hard work and encourage them to keep releasing more music. I personally used to download songs before they were available to buy, and I also have watched the joy musicians feel when they receive the due royalty they deserve. I feel very proud to be part of the pioneering movement to put Bangla music on the international internet market and hope that someday soon, musicians will be financially independent just from their digital sales.

You can listen and buy "Finding Fall" album here: http://armeenmusa.bandcamp.com/

Armeen Musa is currently working on an electronics project "are" with producer Rousseau Mannan due to release in 2014.

Record Label: ME Label 

Favourite Artists: Arnob, Labik Kamal Gaurob, Ajob, Sahana Bajpaie, Cryptic Fate, Groovetrap,Coldplay.

Photo taken from Armeen Musa Facebook Page.

Interviewed by: Joyraz Barua