KARACHI: An evening of indie folk music at T2F on Wednesday, in which a Natasha Ejaz took music lovers by a pleasant surprise, amply demonstrated how under-discussed, and in Pakistani context under-performed, the art form is.
Though it is quite difficult to define indie folk music, it is one genre that not many audiophiles tend to attach the importance to it that it merits. The different colours of country, rock and folk fused into one makes it groovier than many give it credit for.
Natasha Ejaz could be diminutive in stature but the young girl has a big singing voice. She doesn’t go as high as one would like her to, perhaps because the inherent tenderness in her voice impels her to hit the lower notes with the kind of sensitivity that’s required for the songs she likes to croon out.
The young vocalist kicked off the gig with a few of her original tracks, beginning with ‘Today is a Place’. It was a song that moved at a leisurely pace and carried a touch of introspection and soul-searching. She followed it up with ‘Jahaan’, which had an air of innocence about it, and ‘Right Way to Fall’.
However, her vocal range was tested in ‘Till the End of Time’ and she proved that she’s capable of altering the pitch with variable rhythm patterns. At the end of the song, she told the audience that it was to do with a father-daughter conversation.
After that the songstress presented the first cover tune of the evening. It was Damien Rice’s ‘Delicate’. She sang it with the correct feel. Next up was Billie Holiday’s ‘Moonlight in Vermont’ before which she invited a lead guitarist Imam Hamdani to accompany her for the rest of the concert. She did justice to the song as could also be gauged by the generous applause she received.
Then Natasha Ejaz sang ‘Running Home to You’, ‘Love is a Bird’ and an Urdu track ‘Khwaab’. The marked feature of the Urdu song was its experimental tone that was quite unconventional in terms of its poetry. The final couple of numbers included the cover tune of Fiona Apple’s famous song ‘Criminal’ that too was very well appreciated particularly by Apple’s fans in the audience.
