Growing up, Mumbai-based musician Sarthak Karkare was surrounded by music all around him. In all these years, it has been a journey for the musician who goes by the name of his most recent project, Maqta. It is the result of him rediscovering his love for Hindi music, along the way, after playing English music for most part of his life. Today, he releases his latest EP ‘Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin’ with four melodious songs, months after he released his previous EP in September 2023 and a few singles before that. 

The songs are ‘Woh Geet’. ‘Yaadon Ka Nishaan’, ‘Kar Yakeen’ and ‘Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin’ and ask the question, ‘what if you are really free but just don’t know it yet?’. “There are a lot of cinematic and orchestral elements, which is very different from contemporary Bollywood music, but it is also different from independent Hindi music.” The music to come out of Maqta, he says, is not just the singer-songwriter and guitar because it has all these other elements with instruments like harmonium and tabla, guitar and bass and drums.