Inside YATRA: A Conversation with Tariq Hisny On His Romantic Journey

What inspired you to create "YATRA," and what does the title signify in relation to the album's themes?

I have been releasing Tamil songs as singles. So, I thought to make an album with five to seven songs very similar to a typical Tamil film soundtrack. Yatra, this name was given by my lyric writer Nazeem Roomy. According to him, Yatra means Journey. He used to tell me we must make a song name Yatra one day. So, I finally ended up using this name to an album.

The songs are pretty much related to romance and suspense. Therefore, we call the album is about a Romantic Journey.   

"YATRA" features a diverse range of musical collaborations, including a rap song 'Hey Penne.' Could you discuss the decision to incorporate such varied genres and how these collaborations align with the album's vision?

Listeners with Indian music tastes tend to listen to varied genres in a single album. Also, there are people only expect Hip-Hop like songs. So, I wanted to make one song as Hip Hop or a Trap to cover certain audience.  

I asked singer Nithin to write the lyric and sing this different track and he delivered nicely at the end. 

Also, I see lots of positive comments for making this album more open and varied in genre.

Can you describe your songwriting and composition process for "YATRA"? How do you integrate traditional Tamil music with contemporary sounds?

Traditional Tamil music with contemporary sounds is the way to go for any audience who listen to any Indian Tamil song.

When I started writing the songs, I chose certain traditional classical raag to accompany my musical compositions. There are few songs I chose pure South Indian Raag (Carnatic) with some contemporary sounds and mixing techniques.

I truly believe when used like this way, the songs get featured at a higher note.

Do you have a favourite track on the album? If so, could you share any creative challenges or highlights experienced during its production?

I would say “Tholaivinil Tholaivinil” sung by Abhijith Ajayan is my favourite as we had several versions recorded. There’s no musical challenge in this song. However, I had to remove some elements of the music to make the lead voice becomes more prominent.

Also, this song reminds me my first Tamil song “Hey Penne” sung by Sathyaprakash in 2017. Considering the musical elements and its technique, I prefer Tholaivinil Tholaivinil over “Hey Penne.” 

I also feel this album is better than my debut work “Izhaar-E-Ishq”, which was released in 2016 in terms of the varied genre and production techniques.

How have classic artists in the Tamil music scene influenced your work on this album?

Yuvan Shankar Raja and AR Rahman sir are my inspirations. Their music influenced me a lot and I used to listen to their classical pieces and contemporary techniques too often.

I believe that influence is one of the factors that I compose at this level.

What message or experience do you hope listeners will take away from "YATRA"?

The songs are not really limited to a certain genre. So, I hope the listener will listen to at least one song fully. If you still didn’t listen to the songs, have a listen to the songs and please do share it with everyone.