Sankarshan Das
Feel-good music isn’t getting enough attention in 2020, and something in my gut tells me that Sankarshan Das was thinking about this very fact a lot when he was getting ready to record his new single “The World Peace Formula” not too long ago. “The World Peace Formula” is very much the recipe for positive vibes its title would suggest it to be, and while it’s certainly not breaking the mold when it comes to speak-out folk music (particularly as we’ve known it since the 1960s), it’s a stunning listen in a time that has been in need of more songs that don’t celebrate isolation and hate.
More on Sankarshan Das: http://www.turnontheworld.com/
There’s a really warm energy to the harmony in the chorus here that makes me want to get lost in the hypnotic strum of the guitar strings, but had anyone other than Das been placed at its helm, I’m not totally convinced this would have been the case. His vocal style propels some of the woodier tones in the acoustic guitar part to the surface in a way a throatier style of singing simply couldn’t have, and by staying patient in his rhythm rather than attacking the hook harder, he exploits the catharsis for everything it’s worth and more.
The absence of percussion in the backdrop is noticeable only due to the fact that the overall flow of the beat here is really strong - we’re talking whitewater strong - but I don’t think Das was wrong to leave drums out of the mix here at all. Actually, I think that by generating the rhythm entirely by himself, there’s a little more of an organic finish to the tone of the narrative as well as his personal investment in it. I don’t step away from “The World Peace Formula” feeling like I just heard an audible pose someone took for social media, and that’s crucial to making a track like this stick with the right people.
I love how simply this song was mixed. I’ve been telling artists to stop overproducing their content for years often to no avail, but in this instance I would say Das’ use of a cut and dry structure to bring us into the chorus is his biggest slam dunk in “The World Peace Formula.” It would have been easy - and generic - to install some embellishments up front, whether they be electric parts or something actually synthetic, but that would have robbed this composition of its soulful integrity.
Admittedly, I just got into the music of Sankarshan Das this past month, but when I listen to something as unfanciful yet profoundly poetic as “The World Peace Formula,” it’s difficult to understand how he’s managed to fly under my radar for as long as he has. This is a true singer/songwriter in every sense of the term, and while I know most of us could do without politics for a long while following the recent election season, his are statements transcendent of political ideologies and parties; they’re here to save us from ourselves while there’s still time.
Joshua Beach
Melbourne, AUS
12/2020
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