Loneliness can sometimes lead to great works of art. But music and loneliness don’t go together, believes Ankur Tewari. “I feel musicians are getting lonelier because they are only interacting with their computers, and working in silence,” laments the composer and singer. Bringing musicians together was one of the ideas that led to the creation of City Sessions, his first independent album under Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s Tiger Baby Records. The album, which released on May 9, features six original tracks by independent artistes Neel Adhikari, Pushan Kripalani (Slight Diversion), and Arijit Datta (Airport).

For Tewari, City Sessions was a means to go back to how music used to be originally created. Think a bunch of people jamming together, each bringing their individuality and skill to the table. “The charm of why we started making music together is getting lost. So, we took the less beaten path of getting singer-songwriters, musicians, film technicians, and music producers together in a room and saying, ‘Now let’s make a song together’. We recorded it the old-school way where you start the take and you finish it. Everybody who was making the song was in the same room. There is a joy [to this process]. We used to make music like that in films earlier. But with technology, the disadvantage is that it’s pulling people apart,” says the Gully Boy (2019) music supervisor.