Musical biggies Ritviz and Nucleya team up for album

In a news set to bring much cheer among their fans, two of India's most widely-followed and distinctive independent artists, Ritviz and Nucleya, have collaborated for an eight-track album titled 'Baaraat'. 'Liggi' singer Ritviz had previously announced putting out 22 releases till the end of 2021.

The album will be released over a period of eight weeks starting with 'Sathi' on August 6, they announced.

"There's more independent music coming out of the country today than ever before, and it's only going to get bigger and better," Ritviz had told in an interview.

"'Baaraat' is where Ritviz's classical music-tinged stories meet Nucleya's penchant for different sounds. It's a peek into their personalities, their musical sensibilities and their life. Encompassing the gamut of emotions and stages of a riotous celebration, Baaraat is a whimsical sonic exploration by Ritviz and Nucleya, and capricious in its ability to sound nostalgic and modern at the same time.

The tracks are cheeky and playful, both in tone and message." "Interestingly, Baaraat is a sweet culmination of a story that began in 2016 when Nucleya -- proclaimed as a desi bass pioneer by then -- was impressed by 20-year-old Ritviz's musical sensibilities and offered to master his four-track EP 'YUV'. Over the years, the two have constantly stayed in touch, sharing thoughts and tunes, and a collaborative project was just a question of when," revealed a note on the collaboration.

"This collaboration has been something I've looked forward to, because I've loved his music from day one and I often found myself wondering what we could create together, even though both of us have very different styles of making music," says Nucleya.

For Ritviz, the prospect of creating a new kaleidoscope of sounds with Nucleya was the biggest draw, apart from "a dream coming true"."Musically, it's been super exciting because I've always looked at both of our sounds as parallel lines, in the sense that he's folk music and I'm classical, and normally we would never meet," says Ritviz before adding, "But this album is that meeting point, and what we've managed to create is a whole different sound. It had its own challenges but we have both stepped out of our comfort zone." The tracks were recorded in Goa earlier in the year, a place both Nucleya and Ritviz now call home.