Hitting rock bottom would naturally make anyone shut down completely.

But not for this bunch of eight talented young musicians who conceived a band two-years-ago and named it “Nadir”.

“Nadir represents many things in different languages,” the band’s leader, Ashwin Gobinath tells Eksentrika.

Ashwin, who is also the band’s spokesperson said in Arabic, the word means “dearly loved” or “rare”.

And truth be told, with Ashwin on the drums, veteran Zaim Zaidee on bass, Stephanie Tham on keys, Lor Phaik Sim manning the synths, Adil Johan on the saxophone, Santosh Logandran providing sounds via his Tabla and Carnatic vocals, metal head Farique Nadzir on guitar, and Rashdan Harith on vocals, Nadir’s music is pretty rare stuff!

Don’t believe us? Listen to this magnificent piece created following the death of Malaysia’s legendary filmmaker, Yasmin Ahmad.

Ashwin tells us that the band began after a few unsuccessful attempts at writing songs that were catered a little towards the commercial side of things.

“Rashdan, Zaim and I had a conversation about starting fresh and this idea of making this band a cultural melting pot for music came to us.

“The band is all about creating music that fuses cultural elements with modern sensitivities, and together with the technical capabilities and immensely unique ideas each member brings to the table, we managed to create this cool fusion of sounds,” he says.

Taking inspiration from metal to Nusantara funk right down to technical fusion to Celtic to Dave Matthews Band, Snarky Puppy, AR Rahman, John Butler Trio, Ashwin says it’s hard to pinpoint which musical icons inspired them.

“It really is difficult to pinpoint one artist or band that we feed off because it (Nadir) really is a fusion of style and culture and background,” he says adding that they plan on bringing more global diversity and musical influence in their band soon.

Leaving room to evolve and grow, the band tries to keep their songs as organic as possible during performances.

The only challenges we faced were probably arranging everyone’s time and schedule due to the size of the band but that’s just part and parcel of being in a band,” Ashwin reveals.

However, he says he finds it an honour to work with musicians who are truly professionals at what they do.

Plus, they apparently seem to get along well during their de-stressing sessions at the Mamak.

Nadir is gradually gaining prominence in the Malaysian indie music scene with artists such as Bihzhu and Hameer Zawawi collaborating with the eight.

But that is not all.

Ashwin reveals that Nadir aims to release their first album by December, this year.

“Music lovers can look forward to popping that Cd on and hearing something that they would not expect.

“Every song has a distinct personality and the flow of the songs in the album will reflect a story that some people may or may not get.”

The band is yet to unveil the title of its album and Ashwin is being tight lipped about it. However, Nadir can be followed on Facebook, Instagram and Soundcloud.

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