WICYT by Smaran - Musicians' Picks

Overview

Smaran George Srikanth, known mononymously as Smaran, is a pianist, guitarist and singer/songwriter from Bangalore, India. He took Music HL as a subject in his IB Diploma, and often impresses with his live performances and covers. 'When I Call You Tonight' is his first single, and is a 'bedroom pop' track. In this article we asked Smaran to tell us which songs inspired him to produce WICYT, and why.

Are You Bored Yet - Wallows

I had been a fan of the band for a while; this song was always their most popular and it resurfaced on my Apple Music a year or so later. The production is what caught my ear this time round, the subtle synth layering in the choruses, the catchy synth lead and the lo-fi drums are what i was looking for in music around this time. In an interview, I saw that they got Clairo to feature on the song because they were going for a “bedroom pop” vibe and that’s where she specialised.

Pretty Girl - Clairo

From said interview, I looked up Clairo as I had only heard one of her songs at the time, so I wanted to see if I could get any ideas from her approach to bedroom pop. If you listen to Pretty Girl, the instrumentation is pretty similar to When I Call You Tonight. Electric piano driven accompaniment, lo-fi software instrument drums and even the vocal production, with higher frequencies reduced.

Can I Call You Tonight - Dayglow

I had all these bedroom pop ideas in my head, but no lyric ideas to write on or to make an instrumental on (I usually begin with producing the instrumental after I know what the song is gonna be about). On my YouTube recommended one Sunday, there was a video titled “How I Made ‘Can I Call You Tonight’” and I had never heard the song before, but I liked the lyric “Can I Call You Tonight” and a melody that goes with those lyrics immediately popped into my head. I started producing the instrumental based on that one lyric and actually listened to the song only after I had written my entire song. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time now.

WICYT is available on Apple Music, Spotify and other streaming services, so make sure to check it out!

Listen to all the featured songs using the playlist on our Apple Music page.