A MEMBER of the multiracial music collective Nadir, and a singer in his own right, Santosh Logandran has long traversed the storied history of Malaysia’s music scene. Earlier this year, the sound engineer, composer and musician began his solo career with the release of his album In Pursuit of Santosham.
“I have always wanted to be a singer,” Santosh said in an interview
with theSun. “The reason I studied sound engineering is because it is an integral part of the music business. To create professional quality music, audio engineering is an excellent skill to have.
“It also has given me the opportunity to have a steady income. So now, I fund my music career as a singer-songwriter and film composer by working in a studio.”
The musician’s journey began at the very early age of eight, after Santosh’s father enrolled him in Carnatic Indian music lessons under the guidance of the late Padma Subramaniam.
“I have been involved in music ever since. I have learned the tabla and Hindustani vocals under Prakash
Kandasamy and Priyanka Raman at the Temple of Fine Arts.”
Santosh claims that he had always dreamed of performing on his own, and after ten years of playing music for other artists such as Samuel J. Dass, Zee Avi, Bihzhu and others, he decided in June last year to write his own music.
“Initially it was only going to be one song, my first single Yen Di. A month after working on that song I was like, maybe [I should] make an EP of four songs, and after those songs were done, I thought to myself: ‘You know what, I’ll just do an album’, and that is how the album came about,” he explained.
“The album was recorded, mixed and mastered at Nadir Studios. I basically lived in the studio for three months.
“I started work on the album in June and completed it in three months. It was an interesting
experience. As I was writing the songs I realised the music has a very strong feminine energy to it, and so I decided to dedicate the songs to all the women in my life.
“Aradhana for example is a song I wrote for my nieces, Yen Di was a song writen for my fiancé, Rani was for all the women in the world, and so
on”.
Approaching the album, Santosh had a clear motive, something more sublime than expected; he was going to attempt to destroy the shackles that were forcing the Malaysian Tamil music industry from continuously producing somewhat generic music.
“Not all, but a majority of the songs that are produced in Malaysia lack originality,” he asserted. “They either sound like another song from Indian films, or they follow the current trends on TikTok.
“My hope with my music is to help the Malaysian music industry become a leader in the world. We are a multicultural nation, and there is so much to learn from and create with.” Santosh addressed the very obvious brain drain, or music drain in this case, pointing out that he has friends in the industry who are arranging music with the likes of Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman, because talents are leaving the country as they feel unappreciated with the stagnation here.
“I tend to get emotional about this matter because I believe that we have to care and cultivate our future musicians to become better than us, and not push them down so we can survive. Change is inevitable.
“My hope is to inspire more musicians in Malaysia, especially in the Tamil scene to create more music that is outside of the template.”
Currently toughing it out due to travel restrictions, Santosh said that he was supposed to tour and promote his album in India and Europe, but the Covid-19 pandemic has brought those plans to a screeching halt for now.
On future projects, he said: “Yes! I am so excited because I have just finished writing a song with Naaraayini, and we’re in the midst of shooting the music video for that.
“I am also working on the background score for a series, but unfortunately I can’t share more details on that yet.”
