Phosphene: A phenomenon characterized by the experi­ence of seeing light without light actually being presentSomehow I kept hearing sound bites of the Phosphenes at various venues around town. But I had never been able to catch their whole set until recently. Having seen some­thing about them I was not sur­prised, unlike my friend who joined me, when the audience sat down on the floor in front of the stage ready to enjoy the night. “Why are they sitting?” my friend asked. I feel she thought she was coming to see a rock cover band. Well the Phosphenes are far from that, which is why I want­ed to find out more about the four young people and their music.

It turns out it is not as easy as you might think to pin down their style! “We listen to different art­ists and get inspired—we are jazzy but not exactly jazz, more jazz/pop kind of. We are experimenting with different genres—electronic, indie, psychedelic,” explains Abhishek Pokhrel (vocals and guitar). “We used to define ourselves as an indie band, but if we have to describe ourselves today we would say we are more experimental singer/song­writer stuff,’ says Karna (guitar and electronics).

“Not exactly,” chimes in Pokhrel, “our inspiration comes from the Beatles because they went through many genres and that is what we are doing: exploring. That’s how we are learning. Aside from the Beatles our influences are Damien Rice and Nick Drake, among others. Possibly because we all come from different streams of music. Mine is classical, Prajwal (Aryal, vocal and guitar) is from a metal band…”

“And I don’t have any formal music education. I have just been playing for a long time through what I see and hear,” laughs Karna. And so the conversation continued, but two things they all did agree on: that music comes from the heart. And the fact that writing in English is easier than writing in Nepali.

So why is that? “We grew up listen­ing to English so we are more famil­iar with that language, even although we talk in Nepali to each other,” says Pokhrel. “We are picky about finding the right word in Nepali,” continues Supriya Moktan, vocals and key­board. “We are being asked to write in Nepali, because that is needed to market our music to the Nepali audience. I have been pushing them (Aryal and Pokhrel) to write Nepali songs so we can then travel round Nepal and maybe also attract the overseas diaspora. Within Nepal, it’s easier to market Nepali songs than English ones,” explains Karna. “But everyone can connect with our songs because of the fact they are in English,” comments Pokhrel. “Yes, we tried to write in Nepali but it didn’t work,” laughs Moktan. Again a gentle, light-hearted disagreement takes place.

I asked if, at the moment, they had any regular gigs. I was told that their music is considered a bit too ‘different’ by venue owners. They feel venues place less value on orig­inal music than on covers. Having been together in the current format since 2016, the Phosphenes, along with a small group of upcoming bands, such as Kta Haru and Pahenlo Batti Muni, are now taking matters into their own hands, and are start­ing a movement towards original music. Something is in the air—per­haps some unique gigs with these bands to counter what they feel is an unhealthy market, against bands who play originals. Until then, what they wish for is that venue owners realise how much work goes into song writing and up their appreci­ation. Much like that of their audi­ence, the core of whom are long term fans who have been very supportive of the band since the beginning. In short, this is definitely a band worth watching. Preferably live.

The Phosphenes’ music can also be found on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube.